They failed, because as the blogger Epicurean Dealmaker pointed out on Twitter, “Markets distill the biases, opinions, & convictions of elites,” which makes them “Structurally less able to predict populist movements.”
That seems to be way off. Prediction markets reflects the opinion of those who enter in the market. AFAIK there’s no barrier to the lower income strata of the popoluation. Polls also failed to predict the result, so I would say that it was not a structural failure of the markets.
Given that market participants insure against risks with the prediction market and the event of the Brexit does carry risk to some businesses I’m not sure that’s empircally the case.
Possibly we (meaning I vs Epicurean Dealmaker) have a very different notion of ‘elite’. I imagine the elite as the 10% (or 5% or 1%, depending on your Pareto distribution) which has enough capital to hedge against market fluctuations (or enough to create it entirely); as far as I understand instead ED means as ‘elite’ anyone who has enough money to invest in a market.
I don’t think this is the issue. If you invest $10m into some market position, your “opinion” literally has one million times the impact of someone who invested $10. It’s not just “people who invest” vs “people who do not invest”. Even among those who invest, the more capital you apply, the more your opinion matters.
Markets are inherently capital-weighted and their opinion necessarily reflects the positions of the rich to a much greater degree.
That seems to be way off. Prediction markets reflects the opinion of those who enter in the market. AFAIK there’s no barrier to the lower income strata of the popoluation. Polls also failed to predict the result, so I would say that it was not a structural failure of the markets.
The thing is, the markets reflect committed-capital-weighted opinions of market participants. This is not an egalitarian democracy.
Given that market participants insure against risks with the prediction market and the event of the Brexit does carry risk to some businesses I’m not sure that’s empircally the case.
Possibly we (meaning I vs Epicurean Dealmaker) have a very different notion of ‘elite’.
I imagine the elite as the 10% (or 5% or 1%, depending on your Pareto distribution) which has enough capital to hedge against market fluctuations (or enough to create it entirely); as far as I understand instead ED means as ‘elite’ anyone who has enough money to invest in a market.
I don’t think this is the issue. If you invest $10m into some market position, your “opinion” literally has one million times the impact of someone who invested $10. It’s not just “people who invest” vs “people who do not invest”. Even among those who invest, the more capital you apply, the more your opinion matters.
Markets are inherently capital-weighted and their opinion necessarily reflects the positions of the rich to a much greater degree.