Following on from my recent post about Web2.0, hubdub and guessing Irish unemployment, I think it’s only right that I turn this future prediction market technology on myself. Well, on the Daft Report at any rate.
At this link, you’ll find a market on how much lower rents in Ireland will be in January 2009, compared to a year earlier. All you have to do is place some of your hubdub dollars (don’t worry, the whole thing is free, it’s just to measure how sure of the outcome you are) on the year-on-year rate of change, as per Daft’s very own National Rent Index.
Those who get it right will get naught but some more Hubdub dollars, but hopefully that will suffice. Well, that and the knowledge of being right, and perhaps some real dollars, in the form of a cheaper rent, if you’re a tenant bargaining with your landlord – assuming of course rents fall. (As I write this, the Hubdub market currently gives a 5% chance to rents falling less than 6% or rising, so some of that 5% includes the theoretical, at this stage, outcome that rents will go up.)
There is of course a serious side to all this (careful, blogosphere, here comes the science bit). If the market matures enough, it will be interesting to see how correct it is, compared to the actual outcome. Consistently accurate markets, across a whole range of these hubdub thingies, would say something to economists and policymakers, for example in Ireland, in light of the social partnership talks about public sector pay cuts (e.g. have public sector workers already cut their expenditure in anticipation of a cut?)
Most importantly, though, have fun! We need all the fun from markets we can get these days.
Graham Stull ,
Ronan,
This is truly a fantastic use of Web 2.0 technology, but I would not be the contrarian I am, unless I interjected with the obvious critique: I would guess people tend to record their wishes more than their predictions – this is especially true when they are not being asked to pony up any real money.
However, the Darwinian selection mechanism that QA’s markets (i.e. bad predictors get driven out) still works here, as long as people can’t log back in once they go broke. So, over time, the “wish-predictors” can be flushed, then the predictions become more reliable.