Computational Complexity

Thursday, May 08, 2008

 
Electronic Commerce and Prediction Markets

Posted by Lance

Registration has opened for the upcoming ACM Electronic Commerce Conference (which I am general chair) in Chicago July 10-12. The conference is immediately followed by AAAI and The Third World Congress of the Game Theory Society both also in the Chicago area. Before the EC conference is a series of workshops and tutorials covering topics from on-line advertising to social networks.

One of those workshops covers an area that has excited me for several years now, The Third Workshop on Prediction Markets. Prediction markets aggregate information quite efficiently in ways we don't yet fully understand and remains a fertile area of study. Legal limitations on betting have restricted the applications of prediction markets, particularly in the US, but that might change soon. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is asking for public comment for regulations of prediction markets. Their concept release gives a nice discussion of the legal issues. Will this lead to more legitimate real money markets in the US? Time will tell.

More from Pennock and Masse.

9:55 AM #

1.  Anonymous says:  
   
   The Freakonomics blog has a discussion that touches on prediction markets.
   

   3:09 PM, May 08, 2008

2.  Gil Kalai says:  
   
   Lance, can you say a little on what prediction markets are and what do you mean by saying that they aggregate information efficiently?
   

   11:08 AM, May 09, 2008