No offense, but I reviewed the data. At first glance, it did not seem to be
that predictive, and all the races I reviewed showed a clear Republican
bias.
For 1992 President, this market chose Bush over Clinton through August and
then switched to Clinton in the last couple of months. In 1996, this market
chose any Republican over Clinton through 1994 and 1995, switching to
Clinton in 1996. In the current election, it chose Bush overwhelmingly over
Clinton up through election day, when the race was obviously closer than
that. The other races seemed to echo a similar pattern.
Do you have any specific data comparing this market with opinion polls? Do
you have any specific data comparing this market with the actual outcomes?
My quick glanced seemed to find that it failed on both counts.
-- Harvey Newstrom, Security Testing Manager, Fiderus Phone:321-676-4894 Tollfree:866-FIDERUS Mobile:321-258-4809 FAX:321-676-5707 Pager:866-786-1001 or mailto:pager@HarveyNewstrom.com Web: http://HarveyNewstrom.com or http://Fiderus.com> -----Original Message----- > From: owner-extropians@extropy.org > [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Robin Hanson > Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2000 3:04 PM > To: extropians@extropy.org > Subject: RE: Comments on elections > > > Harvey Newstrom wrote: > >This is my problem with using money futures markets. I believe that Bush > >and Gore are much closer than this market would predict. I believe that > >statistically, people with money to invest are more likely to be Bush > >supporters, and that this skews the results. I therefore see > these types of > >futures markets as an opinion poll of the wealthy, but not a > good indicator > >of future events. I even find them less useful in predicting actual > >technical issues. > > > >I would accept the premise that people with more money might be better > >judges of business issues, but I don't see why available > investment capital > >should be assumed to be proportional with intelligence of technological > >savvy. > > You might want to revise your views in light of *data* we have on > how previous markets have done. They have consistently done better > than opinion polls and do not show a bias toward conservative candidates. > See: http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/references.html > > Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu > Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University > MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 > 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 >
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