The conference will be held next Thursday (1 November) at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City. All of the details are available on the conference webpage (http://people.ku.edu/~cigar/PMConf_2007) and the schedule is listed below.

I am pleased to note that Mat Fogarty (Founder and CEO, Xpree) and Alexander Costakis (Managing Director, HSX) have been added to the program.

Please get in touch with me ([email protected]) if you are interested in attending or have any questions.

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Schedule

8:30 Registration, Coffee, Opening Remarks

9:00 Lessons from Corporate Applications of Prediction Markets

Henry Berg, Microsoft

Discussant: Robin Hanson (George Mason Department of Economics)

Christina Ann LaComb, GE (The Imagination Market- abstract is free, text is gated)

Discussant: Marco Ottaviani (Kellogg School of Management, Management and Strategy)

10:45 Coffee Break

11:00 Lessons from Corporate Applications of Prediction Markets (cont)

Dawn Keller, Best Buy (Best Buy’s TAGTRADE Market)

Discussant: Paul Rhode (Department of Economics. Eller College of Management, University of Arizona)

Bo Cowgill, Google (Putting Crowd Wisdom to Work)

Discussant: Eric Zitzewitz (Dartmouth Department of Economics)

12:45 Lunch

Keynote address: Jim Lavoie, Co-Founder and CEO, Rite-Solutions

1:45 Lessons from Prediction Market Organizers and Operators

John Delaney, Founder and CEO, Intrade

David Perry, Co-Founder and President, Consensus Point

Mat Fogarty, Founder and CEO, Xpree Inc

3:15 Break (refreshments)

3:30 The Legal Playing Field

Tom W. Bell, Chapman University School of Law

Discussant: Robert E. Litan (VP Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Director of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center on Regulatory Studies)

4:15 General Discussion

Alexander Costakis (Managing Director, Hollywood Stock Exchange) will also be available to answer questions and may make a short presentation.

Previous blog posts by Koleman Strumpf:

• Prediction Markets in the Classroom: Inkling Markets
• Slides of presentations from Conference on Corporate Applications of Prediction/Information Markets (1 November), Kansas City
• Summary of Conference on Corporate Applications of Prediction/Information Markets (1 November), Kansas City
• Conference: Corporate Applications of Prediction/Information Markets (Thursday, 1 November 2007)
• Copernican Principle: How To Predict the End of the World
• Win Justin’s Money? (re: Is there manipulation in the Hillary Clinton Intrade market? Redux.)
• Is there manipulation in the Hillary Clinton Intrade market?

I think so*, although it could be a matter for states to decide, and not so much the federal government. In that scenario, my thought is that some liberal (in the classic sense) states will allow experimentation with prediction markets, and the informational value (at least over surveys and polls) will eventually sweep the nation. But that could take decades.

I was thinking about the constitutionality of prediction markets when reading Gary McDowell&#8217-s &#8220-The War For the Constitution&#8221-:

Warren Burger summed it up for many when he described Mr. Bork as simply the best qualified nominee in the former chief justice&#8217-s own professional lifetime &#8212- a span of years that included the appointments of such judicial luminaries as Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter. Such praise was no empty exaggeration.

A former Yale law professor and U.S. Solicitor General, Mr. Bork was, at the time of his nomination, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. When he was a circuit court judge, Mr. Bork&#8217-s opinions not only were never overruled on appeal, but on several occasions his dissents were adopted by the Supreme Court as its majority view.

In an earlier day such an appointment would have been celebrated as adding breadth, depth and luster to the highest bench. Instead, the nominee faced a mauling by those who set out not only to destroy him personally but to discredit all that he stood for as a jurist.

It was immediately clear that the unprecedented vote of 58-42 against his confirmation reflected something far more historic and fundamental than an ordinary partisan standoff. The confrontation in fact had been one of the most cataclysmic and divisive events in American domestic politics during the second half of the 20th century. The reason was that Mr. Bork&#8217-s opponents succeeded in making the fight over his nomination into a contest over the future of the Constitution.

* * *

Time has shown that Mr. Bork&#8217-s theory of constitutional interpretation remains very much alive- he was defeated but his central idea was never discredited. That theory of interpretation and its implicit belief in restrained judging should continue to guide anyone who believes that the inherent arbitrariness of government by judiciary is not the same thing as the rule of law.

One thing that is more scary than irrational voters is whimsical judges. And I know a few, personally.

*Off the top of my head, free speech and peaceful assembly seem to enable our rights to prediction markets.

UPDATE: Chris Masse linked prediction markets to the right to privacy here last year. I&#8217-m not sure that is as relevant as speech and assembly&#8211-the whole point being prices from prediction markets is a public good (even as I concede that the anonymity of traders improves prices). But what do I know&#8211-I&#8217-m not an attorney or judge, just someone who knows a lot of them.

UPDATE: Tom Bell, on the Constitution&#8217-s call for progress in science and arts.

UPDATE: Alvin Roth, on the repugnance of markets (including prediction markets in terror). This reframes my point&#8211-constitutional repugnance is good, fleeting cultural repugnance is irrelevant. Just as slavery markets were not repugnant yesterday (but unconstitutional), so prediction markets are repugnant today (but constitutional)!

Cross posted from Caveat Bettor.

Read the previous blog posts by Caveat Bettor:

• The Democrat SC Showdown: Intrade v. Zogby
• Zogby beats Intrade in predicting Nevada caucus winner Clinton.
• The GOP SC and Dem NV Showdown: Intrade v. Zogby
• Latest Intrade v. Zogby contest is up.
• Who said prediction markets were perfect?
• Intrade markets and Zogby polls agree in New Hampshire
• The Iowa Showdown: Zogby v. Intrade