NYT reports that there is an outcry in Washington over a plan to use the same kind of online futures market system that I participate in for elections (described earlier in this weblog) in order to provides probability outcomes for various adverse foreign policy events. To me, this sounds like a great idea, in that I think if it attracted enough participants a market system may well provide better estimates of probabilities of events occurring than what you would get from policy experts who often have an incentive to provide biased or spinned estimates. Alas, however, it looks like it will not survive the criticism; it's too easy to portray as gambling-on-assassinations.
Postscript: Here is the link for the Policy Analysis Market, although I'm not sure how long it will last. I would be interested in participating in this market if it did come into existence, but I wonder if doing so is going to get my name on some kind of surveillance list.
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