Now that Joe Biden is the Democratic vice president nominee, what to think of Justin Wolfers August 1st column for the WSJ?

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The good point is that he dealt well with the fact that the VP prediction markets fed on primary indicators that are less reliable than the ones used for the political elections.

The bad point is that, at the time he wrote up his column, Virginia governor Tim Kaine was the favorite of the InTrade VP prediction markets. The others were, in decreasing order, Evan Bayth, Kathleen Sebelius, and then&#8230- Joe Biden. So, the critic reading his column today could say that the prediction markets are oversold to a gullible public and that a prediction market bubble ready to pop up is forming under our very nose.

– Now, we know that Barack Obama made his decision while vacationing in Hawaii (less than 2 weeks ago). That&#8217-s only from that date that the VP prediction markets started generating probabilistic predictions worth quoting. The trick is that Justin Wolfers (and the other prediction market analysts) didn&#8217-t know that, on August 1st. (PDF file)

– I don&#8217-t regret my decision not to publish about the VP prediction markets. I&#8217-d look like an idiot today.

3 thoughts on “Now that Joe Biden is the Democratic vice president nominee, what to think of Justin Wolfers August 1st column for the WSJ?

  1. How do InTrade's prediction markets work, and are they really accurate? | Midas Oracle .ORG said:

    […] Justin Wolfers is an admirable and ultra friendly person, a great prediction market researcher, a good prediction market analyst, and a wonderful blogger, but his TV appearances are, so far, totally crappy. They guy needs to […]

  2. Mitt Romney will be the Republican vice presidential nominee. | Midas Oracle .ORG said:

    […] That vindicates my message that the VP prediction markets fed on unreliable primary indicators. […]

  3. Paul Kedrosky … sucks. - Plus, Jason Trost is bashing InTrade and BetFair in order to boost his startup, Smarkets. | Midas Oracle .ORG said:

    […] the way, I was pleased to see (elsewhere) that Emile Servan-Schreiber of NewsFutures has the same (bad) opinion about those VP prediction markets as I do. I will index Emile in this file, next […]

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