May 8, 2007

Secrets of an Inkling Top Trader: Spotting Riskless Arbitrage Opportunities

Michael Giberson As mentioned here before, Inkling offers a public play-money prediction market. I stumbled across them a year or so ago, and because I’m interested in market design and prediction markets, I decided to try them out. Partly because playing the Inkling markets amuses me and partly because I started doing well, I’ve continue …

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Economists Seek Safe Harbor for Small Stakes Prediction Markets

Michael Giberson A number of prominent economists have signed on to a statement seeking reform of government policy toward prediction markets. The abstract: Prediction markets are markets for contracts that yield payments based on the outcome of an uncertain future event, such as a presidential election. Using these markets as forecasting tools could substantially improve …

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The Challenge of Retail Electricity Restructuring: Dynamic Pricing and Enabling Technology

Lynne Kiesling Here’s one reason why I’ve been so incommunicado for the past few weeks: Retail Electricity Deregulation: Prospects and Challenges for Dynamic Pricing and Enabling Technologies, a paper for the new Searle Center Annual Review of Regulation at Northwestern University. Here’s a teaser from the introduction: Optimistic expectations from the 1990s restructuring changes have …

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Is Falls Church the Harry-est Town in America?

Michael Giberson As observed at Freakonomics, my home town of Falls Church, Virginia is (at present) leading Amazon.com’s contest to be the “The Harry-est Town in America.” Freakonomics puts it concisely: Whichever town pre-orders the most copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will receive a $5,000 Amazon gift certificate, to be directed by …

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