Prediction market

Prediction markets (also known as predictive markets, information markets, decision markets, idea futures, event derivatives, or virtual markets) are exchange-traded markets created for the purpose of trading the outcome of events. The market prices can indicate what the crowd thinks the probability of the event is. A prediction market contract trades between 0 and 100%. It is a binary option that will expire at the price of 0 or 100%.Prediction markets can be thought of as belonging to the more general concept of crowdsourcing which is specially designed to aggregate information on particular topics of interest. The main purposes of prediction markets are eliciting aggregating beliefs over an unknown future outcome. Traders with different beliefs trade on contracts whose payoffs are related to the unknown future outcome and the market prices of the contracts are considered as the aggregated belief. Prediction markets (also known as predictive markets, information markets, decision markets, idea futures, event derivatives, or virtual markets) are exchange-traded markets created for the purpose of trading the outcome of events. The market prices can indicate what the crowd thinks the probability of the event is. A prediction market contract trades between 0 and 100%. It is a binary option that will expire at the price of 0 or 100%.Prediction markets can be thought of as belonging to the more general concept of crowdsourcing which is specially designed to aggregate information on particular topics of interest. The main purposes of prediction markets are eliciting aggregating beliefs over an unknown future outcome. Traders with different beliefs trade on contracts whose payoffs are related to the unknown future outcome and the market prices of the contracts are considered as the aggregated belief. Before the era of scientific polling, early forms of prediction markets often existed in the form of political betting. One such political bet dates back to 1503, in which people bet on who would be the papal successor. Even then, it was already considered 'an old practice'. According to Paul Rhode and Koleman Strumpf, who has researched the history of prediction markets, there are records of election betting in Wall Street dating back to 1884. Rhode and Strumpf estimates that average betting turnover per US presidential election is equivalent to over 50 percent of the campaign spend. Economic theory for the ideas behind prediction markets can be credited to Friedrich Hayek in his 1945 article 'The Use of Knowledge in Society' and Ludwig von Mises in his 'Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth'. Modern economists agree that Mises' argument combined with Hayek's elaboration of it, is correct. Prediction markets are championed in James Surowiecki's 2004 book The Wisdom of Crowds, Cass Sunstein's 2006 Infotopia, and Douglas Hubbard's How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business. The research literature is collected together in the peer-reviewed The Journal of Prediction Markets, edited by Leighton Vaughan Williams and published by the University of Buckingham Press. The ability of the prediction market to aggregate information and make accurate predictions is based on the efficient-market hypothesis, which states that assets prices are fully reflecting all available information. For instance, existing share prices always include all the relevant related information for the stock market to make accurate predictions. James Surowiecki raises three necessary conditions for collective wisdom: diversity of information, independence of decision, and decentralization of organization. In the case of predictive market, each participant normally has diversified information from others and makes their decision independently. The market itself has a character of decentralization compared to expertise decisions. Because of these reasons, predictive market is generally a valuable source to capture collective wisdom and make accurate predictions. Prediction markets have an advantage over other forms of forecasts due to the following characteristics. Firstly, they can efficiently aggregate a plethora of information, beliefs, and data. Next, they obtain truthful and relevant information through financial and other forms of incentives. Prediction markets can incorporate new information quickly and are difficult to manipulate.