Re: Dickens on the Laffer Curve

[Peter C. McCluskey]

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) writes:
Taking the example of Stalin's war on the peasantry in general and the
Ukraine in particular, we see that massive confiscations of income at marginal 
rates
well in excess of 100% certainly detered economic activity, to put it rather
mildly.

 Mancur Olson claims in his book Power and Prosperity that the marginal
income tax rate was effectively zero. The effective taxes were near 100%
of what a typical worker in any given position could produce, but workers
producing more than expected kept all the unexpected wealth. That created
stronger incentives on each person to work hard than in the west, strong
incentives to prevent others from working hard, and some incentives for
each industry to deceive the system about what a typical worker can produce.
 There were few problems with the total amount of economic activity under
Stalin. The problems were with the goals which that activity satisfied.
--
--
Peter McCluskey | Everyone complains about the laws of physics, but no
www.bayesianinvestor.com| one does anything about them. - from Schild's Ladder

Re: Projections and Media incentives

[Peter C. McCluskey]

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Friedman) writes:
It's possible that I'm missing something--that there is some additional
large source of uncertainty that could change the outcome, such as huge
numbers of uncounted absentee ballots--but I don't think so. It looks to
me as though CNN doesn't want to concede that the election is over
because when they do people will stop viewing their web site (and, I
presume, watching their TV programs).

 That strategy would normally fail due to viewers switching to the news
source that is first to report the result. Maybe Kerry voters want to
avoid knowing the news, or CNN mistakenly thinks that is the case?

 Kerry has apparently conceded just now, while CNN is only calling 254
electoral votes for Bush, and Fox showing 269 for Bush (strangely reluctant
to call Nevada).
--
--
Peter McCluskey  | To say that President George W. Bush has been
www.bayesianinvestor.com | spending money like a drunken sailor is an insult to
 | drunken sailors. - Nick Gillespie, Reason Magazine

Comparing Tradesports to the pollsters

[Peter C. McCluskey]

 Assuming the preliminary results are accurately indicating the final results,
Tradesports did quite well at predicting the elections (except for a few hours
on Tuesday afternoon when it mistakenly reacted to exit polls). It's Monday
evening prices correctly indicated which presidential candidate would win
each state. And it did a good job of indicating which states were closest
(saying Iowa and Ohio were the least certain).
 Judging by the home page on what seemed to be the best known site devoted
to tracking the polls (electoral-vote.com), the final polls got Ohio, Florida,
Iowa, Hawaii wrong and predicted a tie in New Mexico and New Hampshire. Other
ways of interpreting the polls probably did better, but I didn't track them.
 Even using the Tradesports prices from a month before the election
(October 2), Tradesports looks better than the final polls, getting only
Wisconsin, New Mexico, and New Hampshire wrong, and showing Iowa and New
Hampshire as the closest states.

 Tradesports also had several contracts which did a good job of predicting
the total electoral vote count, predicting a month in advance that Bush
would get just under 300 electoral votes, and predicting on Monday evening
that he would get about 276 electoral votes.

 Tradesports predicted all but one senate race correctly. It was wrong on
Alaska (which it said was the hardest to call). It looks like the pollsters
called that one correctly. I haven't checked whether pollsters missed any
of the other Senate races.

 Here are some of the prices I've saved, taken at approximately 9pm Pacific
time on the indicated dates:
Date   Last  Bid  Ask   Contract Description
041101 97.3 97.1 98.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 150 Electoral Votes
041101 92.0 91.5 92.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 200 Electoral Votes
041101 71.5 71.5 72.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 250 Electoral Votes
041101 23.2 23.2 23.5 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 300 Electoral Votes
041101  9.0  7.6  9.2 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 350 Electoral Votes
041101  3.9  2.6  4.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 400 Electoral Votes
041101  2.0  1.7  3.0 G W Bush to gain ON or OVER 450 Electoral Votes
041101 51.2 51.2 53.0 George W Bush to receive the most Popular Votes
041101 48.9 46.2 48.9 John F Kerry to receive the most Popular Votes
041101  276  266  285 Number of Electoral Votes won by George W Bush
041101 53.4 53.2 53.4 George W Bush is re-elected as United States President.
041101 47.5 47.5 47.8 John Kerry to be elected as United States President
041101 97.3 95.3 99.6 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Alabama
041101 97.0 95.0 99.8 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Alaska
041101 92.0 91.0 92.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Arizona
041101 85.0 81.1 85.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Arkansas
041101  3.6  2.9  3.6 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of California
041101 76.0 75.3 76.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Colorado
041101  3.0  1.2  5.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Connecticut
041101  7.9  5.3  8.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Delaware
041101 55.9 55.5 55.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Florida
041101 97.0 97.0 99.6 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Georgia
041101 26.8 26.2 28.4 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Hawaii
041101 99.0 96.0 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Idaho
041101  6.0  3.2  6.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Illinois
041101 95.0 95.4 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Indiana
041101 51.9 51.9 52.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Iowa
041101 96.0 96.1 99.6 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Kansas
041101 95.5 95.4 99.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Kentucky
041101 95.0 95.0 99.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Louisiana
041101  6.0  4.0  6.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Maine
041101  5.0  3.1  5.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Maryland
041101  2.0  0.4  3.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Massachusetts
041101 22.0 22.0 23.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Michigan
041101 27.0 20.0 29.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Minnesota
041101 97.0 97.0 97.8 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Mississippi
041101 87.2 87.1 91.6 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Missouri
041101 98.0 98.0 99.9 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Montana
041101 96.5 95.3 99.5 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Nebraska
041101 74.9 74.0 75.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Nevada
041101 31.5 31.5 34.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New Hampshire
041101 13.0 11.1 14.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New Jersey
041101 60.0 55.0 60.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New Mexico
041101  2.1  1.7  3.1 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of New York
041101 95.0 92.1 95.1 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of North Carolina
041101 95.2 96.3 99.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of North Dakota
041101 55.0 51.4 55.0 G W Bush to win the electoral votes of Ohio
041101 99.6 95.0 99.6 G W Bush to 

Re: another use for idea futures

[Peter C. McCluskey]

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wei Dai) writes:
To handle the case when it's not good enough to assume that p(x) is flat
in the range -.02n to .02n, for example when one candidate has a
clear lead, we can instead assume that p(x) has a normal distribution, and
find the normal distribution that best fits the 4 data points offered by
IEM.

 I think it's harder than this to adequately model p(x), because it acts
differently in close races because the incentive for the losing side to
cheat is highest when it's most likely to change the result.

 Another relevant contract is the Tradesports contract on Presidential
Election is Certified on or before Dec 13 2004 which is trading around
87 to 89%.

 What I really want is something which would quantify the probability my
vote will affect what interest groups future candidates pander to. I suspect
this is higher than the chance of affecting the identity of the winner.

--
--
Peter McCluskey  | To say that President George W. Bush has been
www.bayesianinvestor.com | spending money like a drunken sailor is an insult to
 | drunken sailors. - Nick Gillespie, Reason Magazine

Re: Senators Denounce Policy Analysis Markets

[Peter C. McCluskey]

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (fabio guillermo rojas) writes:

Could this not be an opportunity? Maybe a private sponsor could set up the
market? Fabio 

 There are nontrivial regulatory costs to doing it privately in the U.S.,
which probably became a good deal more serious now that politicians are
scared of the idea.
 But the publicity has probably increased the rewards for tradesports.com
(located in Ireland) to expand, and for other non-U.S. companies to compete
with it.
-- 
--
Peter McCluskey  | To announce that there must be no criticism of
http://www.rahul.net/pcm | the President, or that we are to stand by the
 | President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
 | and servile, but morally treasonable to the
 | American public. - Theodore Roosevelt