Michael Giberson Price gouging has been all over the news lately. In Kentucky the state Attorney General has sued Marathon Oil for allegedly gouging customers in the months after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. (Marathon is counter-suing the state, claiming the state’s law is unconstitutional on a number of grounds.) In Missouri the state has recently …
Michael Giberson At the suggestion of prediction market scholars Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz, InTrade is running a market on the XM-Sirius satellite radio merger. The apparent verdict? Market says, “maybe next year.” For the moment, the “The XM and Sirius satellite merger to close before the end of Dec 2007” contract most recently traded …
Prediction Markets on Xm-sirius Merger: Maybe Next Year Read More »
Michael Giberson The Washington Post has a story on “socially responsible investing,” which puzzles over the below average returns that such investment funds seem to offer: [I]nvestors often pay a price when they add social considerations to the mix. Socially responsible investing funds, including expenses, generally trail traditional competitors, according to Morningstar data. For the …
The Supply and Demand for Socially Conscious Investments Read More »
Michael Giberson Bastiat, were he alive today, would be econoblogging. Much econoblogging deploys the rhetorical form of gossip: observation and comment. Only instead of the target being someone’s ex-spouse’s new partner, or a celebrity headed to jail, it is GDP or government subsidies or tax policy. We’re a fun bunch don’t you know. Grant McCracken …
Michael Giberson How far would you go to gain another $1 a gallon on fuel? As The Independent reports, some biofuel traders in Europe, in a little trick called “splash and dash”, are shipping biodiesel to the U.S. to be mixed with a little gas to qualify for a $1/gallon subsidy, then shipping it back …
Michael Giberson …at least that would be a sensible response for senators concerned about automobile fuel economy and increasing consumption of fossil fuels. While news reports have suggested that higher prices haven’t really backed down consumption much, we all know what would happen if prices were a dollar per gallon lower. But no, market-based solutions …
Michael Giberson Via the Associated Press and MSN Money: [Michigan’s] Democratic House Speaker Andy Dillon has floated the idea of taxing utilities, possibly in exchange for eliminating the law that opened electricity markets to competition. So, Dillon is offering consumers the opportunity to be taxed more in return for having the possibility of retail competition …
Michael Giberson The Houston Chronicle reports, “Marathon Oil Corp. says regulators have warned the company that it may face legal action for allegedly attempting to manipulate crude oil prices in 2003.” Marathon allegedly traded aggressively one day in 2003 in an after-hours market to drive down the price of a commonly-used benchmark, presumably to benefit …
Marathon Oil, Manipulation, Misplaced Concreteness and the Cheesy Strategy Read More »
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 …
Secrets of an Inkling Top Trader: Spotting Riskless Arbitrage Opportunities Read More »
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 …
Economists Seek Safe Harbor for Small Stakes Prediction Markets Read More »
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