http://www.randomhouse.com/features/wisdomofcrowds/
Some of this is a bit "last season" but this notion of average opinion being a good guide to future events is interesting. We should re-read the Wisdom of Crowds and have a look at how some simple aggregation mechanism for opinions would work. I could not find odds for a house price fall on some of the gambling websites. I think i will ring up tommorow (using my home phone!) and ask for a price from Paddy Power or someone and get what odds they are giving. I am sure there has already been a lot of papers done here and it would be interesting to look at them but i dont know off the top of my head the extent to which betting companies odds have been used as research devices in economics. As a sideline some of the current affairs bets going at the moment include who will take over from Pat Kenny (Ryan Tubridy is favourite at 6-1). Bertie is 4-7 on to be the next Taoiseach. The 24th and 31st May are both joint favourties at even money to be the next election day. This is very interesting. What odds would you get on different towns having the next cryptosporidium outbreak etc.,? Could these be used for prediction?
3 comments:
also, it would be interesting to compare the betting odds with subjective probabilities elicited from surveys as well as media pundit polls. although the problem with such betting is that it can lead to a lot of potential for skulduggery if the focus of the bet is too malleable to interference without detection.
My gut (excuse the pun) instinct is that too much expert knowledge is needed to get odds on something like the next cryptosporidium outbreak. But I guess that's what we're trying to test.
I like the idea of comparing subjective probability elicitations with betting odds. We could do a good line in the former...
interestingly enough, the election has now just been set for the 24th so the bookies were right!
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