Prediction Markets and Beyond

71 snips

Nov 22, 2024

Guest

Scott Duke Kominers

Guest

Alex Tabarrok

In this discussion, Alex Tabarrok, an economics professor at George Mason University, and Scott Duke Kominers, a Harvard Business School researcher, dive into the intriguing world of prediction markets. They assess the recent election performance of these markets compared to traditional polling, explore their design challenges, and discuss the implications of integrating AI and blockchain technology. The pair also contemplate innovative governance models like futarchy and the future of journalism shaped by predictive capabilities. Their insights promise a fresh perspective on information aggregation.

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ADVICE

Creating Markets Without Organic Demand

To create markets without organic demand, either create latent demand or use alternative mechanisms.
Consider incentivized surveys or peer prediction, which reward accurate estimates of population beliefs.

ANECDOTE

The Neighbor Poll and Revealed Preferences

The 'neighbor poll' indirectly reveals preferences by asking about neighbors' likely votes.
Revealed preferences, or actual actions, are more reliable than stated intentions.

INSIGHT

Thin Markets, Legalization, and Information

Thin markets have few participants with small bets, indicating weak information signals.
Legalizing prediction markets could increase participation, information, and accuracy.

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with @atabarrok @skominers @smc90

We've heard a lot about the premise and the promise of prediction markets for a long time, but they finally hit the main stage with the most recent election. So what worked (and didn't) this time? Are they better than pollsters, journalists, domain experts, superforecasters?

So in this conversation, we tease apart the hype from the reality of prediction markets, from the recent election to market foundations... going more deeply into the how, why, and where these markets work. We also discuss the design challenges and opportunities, including implications for builders throughout. And we also cover other information aggregation mechanisms -- from peer prediction to others -- given that prediction markets are part of a broader category of information-elicitation and information-aggregation mechanisms.

Where do (and don't) blockchain and crypto technologies come in -- and what specific features (decentralization, transparency, real-time, open source, etc.) matter most, and in what contexts? Finally, we discuss applications for prediction and decision markets -- things we could do right away to in the near-to distant future -- touching on everything from corporate decisions and scientific replication to trends like AI, DeSci, futarchy/ governance, and more?

Our special expert guests are Alex Tabarrok, professor of economics at George Mason University and Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center; and Scott Duke Kominers, research partner at a16z crypto, and professor at Harvard Business School -- both in conversation with Sonal Chokshi.

RESOURCES
(from links to research mentioned to more on the topics discussed)

The Use of Knowledge in Society by Friedrich Hayek (American Economic Review, 1945)
Everything is priced in by rsd99 (r/wallstreetbets, 2019)
Idea Futures (aka prediction markets, information markets) by Robin Hanson (1996)
Auctions: The Social Construction of Value by Charles Smith
Social value of public information by Stephen Morris and Hyun Song Shin (American Economic Review, December 2002)
Using prediction markets to estimate the reproducibility of scientific research by Anna Dreber, Thomas Pfeiffer, Johan Almenberg, Siri Isaksson, Brad Wilson, Yiling Chen, Brian Nosek, and Magnus Johannesson (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (November 2015)
A solution to the single-question crowd wisdom problem by Dražen Prelec, Sebastian Seung, and John McCoy (Nature, January 2017)
Targeting high ability entrepreneurs using community information: Mechanism design in the field by Reshmaan Hussam, Natalia Rigol, and Benjamin Roth (American Economic Review, March 2022)
Information aggregation mechanisms: concept, design, and implementation for a sales forecasting problem by Charles Plott and Kay-Yut Chen, Hewlett Packard Laboratories (March 2002)
If I had a million [on deciding to dump the CEO or not] by Robin Hanson (2008)
Futarchy: Vote values, but bet beliefs by Robin Hanson (2013)
From prediction markets to info finance by Vitalik Buterin (November 2024)
Composability is innovation by Linda Xie (June 2021)
Composability is to software as compounding interest is to finance by Chris Dixon (October 2021)
resources & research on DAOs, a16z crypto

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