From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Thu Aug 07 2003 - 04:07:24 MDT
On 8/6/2003, Adrian Tymes responded to Mike Lorrey:
> > While I agree that it doesn't necessarily need to be
> > sponsored by the government, ... they might make it
> > illegal to do in the private sphere as well.
>
>Doubtful. The calls are for the government not to
>fund PAMs. Trying to make them illegal would run into
>trying to make certain forms of betting ... illegal,
>which certain jurisdictions will not tolerate, even to
>the point of prevention of enforcement disobedience if
>necessary. (Nevada, for example.)
Information markets *are* effectively illegal in much
of the private sphere in the US, including Nevada.
Nevada only allows betting on sports. The CFTC allows
people to create markets for gambling on commodities,
if risk-hedging functions are served and lots of money
will flow through it. The only apparent safe place to
do private info markets is entirely within a particular
corporation.
The idea of info markets is that someone wants to know
something so they create/subsidize a market whose prices
will tell them what they want to know. On the topic of
military/political instability in the Mideast, the US
government is one of the biggest potential customers,
since they should get great value from knowing. Thus
losing them as a customer is a big setback to selling
that info product.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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