12 Comments

Unnamed and Eliezer both make good points. "Why even bother" isn't even that good of a question, since imitating successful countries is more likely than the government starting such a market. Maybe not for good reasons, but Frankel can't be blamed for that.

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I think you're coming on too strong in the final paragraph. Frankel could easily reply thusly: "Empirically, they did it in Chile, and it worked. I'm just recommending what has been observed to work - your arguments that prediction markets should work and should resist manipulation are interesting, but you cannot criticize me for recommending an empirically tested, actually-working solution over a theoretical one." Even I tend to be sympathetic to that sort of argument when it is an actually-observed-adequate solution that is being defended, rather than, as usual, inaction or an inadequate solution.

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You are missing the point. It isn't a bug its a feature. They are trying to lie so they can inflate their budget projections without looking as bad. They could do accurate budget forecasts but often the law explicitly prevents them from doing so.

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I'm pretty sure that's what Robin meant by saying Frankel might be "ignorant of the market solution", even though a phrase like that usually means something much stronger.

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Did the paper also see how forecasts compare to the median actual growth rate (rather than the mean)? In other words, what percent of the time does the actual growth exceed the forecasted growth and what percent of the time does it fall short?

The distribution of growth rates is skewed (growth much slower than average is more common than growth much faster than average), which means that the median growth rate is larger than the mean growth rate. So if projections were aiming for the 50th percentile, rather than the mean, they would tend to overestimate growth by the measures used in this passage.

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To elaborate on Robin's complaint, lots of countries claim to have independent experts. Frankel even points out the CBO in the US, though the example he gives of political manipulation of it is not relevant to short-term forecasts. It is not useful to find the country achieving the best results and copy its description of its institutions; one must compare it to other countries

open

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Agreed.

I find it plausible he doesn't know about prediction markets. Isn't that kind of a niche topic?

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"A pundit has endorsed a solution which differs from my preferred solution. He is either stupid, ignorant, or dishonest". This type of rhetoric can't possibly be intellectually healthy. Why not just present your preferred solution and argue for it being better?

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Here's an economist who got fined for saying the Argentine inflation rate is above government measures...I don't think people want the truth, especially large organizations (governments, industry groups, etc).

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Overall I favour your proposal, but I would have thought prediction markets would show a slight *downward* bias because they provide a way for investors to hedge against disappointing growth numbers.

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