Peter Dorman wrote:
> > >A single skillful interpreter ... more reliable than a market
> aggregation ...
> > if people disagree about who the best analyst is, then a betting market
> might
> > give people good incentives to be honest with themselves about who to
> rely on.
>
>This is where democratic discourse comes in. Have you read Mark Sagoff's
>ECONOMY
>OF THE EARTH? I like his analogy to juries, which applies to this
>case. (He is a
>bit weak on the problems of democracy, to put it mildly, but that's another
>question.)
I haven't read it, but will if that would enable our discussion to continue.
It might take me a few weeks though.
I hope it is clear that I do not propose to *replace* discourse with betting.
The question is what happens when disagreement persists, even after
substantial
discourse.
Imagine we knew the right answer for some trial of fact (e.g., did OJ do it?)
and we present a bunch of evidence to both a jury and a betting market.
We then repeat this process a bunch of times to get statistics on how well
each institution does. Are you confident that the jury will get the right
answer more often than the betting market?
Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
