Gambling, Prediction Markets and Public Policy @ Nottingham Trent University @ Nottingham, England, Great Britain, E.U. – 2008-09-15~16
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In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in expenditure on various forms of gambling and prediction markets, including casinos, sports betting, lotteries, wagering on financial instruments. The rapid growth in this activity has heightened interest in a variety of public policy issues related to this sector.
Managers and policymakers seek guidance on how to tax and regulate this activity within regions, countries, and across national borders. Unfortunately, there is little systematic theoretical and empirical evidence to guide such decisions, given the somewhat embryonic nature of the literature. Furthermore, gambling and prediction markets provide a unique and convenient framework within which to examine fundamental issues relating to traditional areas of economics. For these reasons, this is an opportune time to address questions relating to gambling and prediction markets in a special issue of the Southern Economic Journal.
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Research questions that contributors to the symposium might address are:
- What is the optimal level and structure of taxation for various forms of gambling?
- What are the implications of new forms of financial instruments based on gambling principles, such as ‘spread’ (index) betting, binary betting, and person-to-person ‘exchange’ betting?
- How does the growth of gambling affect the broader economy?
- What factors influence productivity and other performance indicators in the gambling sector?
- Does gambling promote economic development?
- How should governments regulate ‘Indian’ gaming?
- What are the managerial and policy implications of online gambling?
- How can prediction markets be used in decision-making?
- Are there systematic biases in betting and prediction markets?
- How well do prediction markets relative to other forecasting tools, such as opinion polls?
- What is the optimal design of prediction markets?
- What are the applications of prediction markets?
- What is the empirical evidence on information efficiency in betting markets and what implications does this have for our broader understanding of financial and prediction markets?
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