At the prediction markets blog, Midas Oracle, Chris Masse has posted several times (here, here, and don’t miss the remarks in the comments) about the recent piece on prediction markets in The Economist. Among his recent grand pronouncements:
If you are a prediction market consultant, and have nothing to say about the negative piece from The Economist, then you don’t matter anymore.
Really?
What is it that The Economist said that prediction market consultants should have something to say about?
I read article when it showed up online, and then again when the print version arrived and after Chris mentioned it at Midas Oracle, and now a third time since I wonder why he is making a big deal of it.
Fortunately, it is a light read – reading it three times has not been particularly taxing. But there is not a lot of depth there to engage: An intro paragraph, some explanation, three brief examples-two of which illustrate implementation problems, and then the article concludes with a quip that “Perhaps the best way to find out when prediction markets will finally take off is to ask your employees–using a prediction market.”
That’s it.
No searing indictment of the prediction market software vendors and consulting business, no challenge to the theoretical foundations of prediction markets, no rejection of the “wisdom of the crowds.” All the article does is observe that the tool has “yet to take off.”
So my question to Chris remains, “What is it that The Economist said that prediction market consultants should have something to say about?”