Obamamania as Tulipmania?

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You're looking at a graph of the Iowa Electronic Markets' Democratic nomination contract. These markets exist to prove the notion that markets are the best predictor of what people will want in the future. When it comes to goods and services, there's no doubt that the market beats central planning - the Soviet Union controlled every factory and salary, but still couldn't manage to get demand for household staples correct.

I don't see this working for elections. For the period in which everyone was completely in the dark other than the poll, compare the IEM chart with this poll of polls chart. They track almost exactly, except that Obama's support is discounted for uncertainty about the relative rookie. Once results start rolling in, the IEM chart bops up and down with each new vote. Obama shoots up after Iowa, plummets after New Hampshire, then fluctuates until Obama gets some media buzz before Super Tuesday. Everybody except Clinton supporters said Obama won Super Tuesday, so his contract's ascent continues and accelerates after this weekend's primaries and caucuses.

What does this show? It shows that the wisdom of the market has added little or nothing to our existing prediction technology, namely polls. In other words, nobody knows nothin'.

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