Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden.
PLoS One. 2009 Dec 30;4(12):e8500. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008500.
Prediction markets are powerful forecasting tools. They have the potential to aggregate private information, to generate and disseminate a consensus among the market participants, and to provide incentives for information acquisition. These market functionalities can be very valuable for scientific research. Here, we report an experiment that examines the compatibility of prediction markets with the current practice of scientific publication. We investigated three settings. In the first setting, different pieces of information were disclosed to the public during the experiment. In the second setting, participants received private information. In the third setting, each piece of information was private at first, but was subsequently disclosed to the public. An automated, subsidizing market maker provided additional incentives for trading and mitigated liquidity problems. We find that the third setting combines the advantages of the first and second settings. Market performance was as good as in the setting with public information, and better than in the setting with private information. In contrast to the first setting, participants could benefit from information advantages. Thus the publication of information does not detract from the functionality of prediction markets. We conclude that for integrating prediction markets into the practice of scientific research it is of advantage to use subsidizing market makers, and to keep markets aligned with current publication practice.
预测市场是强大的预测工具。它们具有聚合私人信息、在市场参与者中生成并传播共识、以及为获取信息提供激励的潜力。这些市场功能对于科学研究可能非常有价值。在这里，我们报告了一项实验，该实验考察了预测市场与当前科学出版实践的兼容性。我们研究了三种设置。在第一种设置中，不同的信息在实验过程中向公众披露。在第二种设置中，参与者收到私人信息。在第三种设置中，最初每条信息都是私人的，但随后向公众披露。一个自动化的、补贴的做市商为交易提供了额外的激励，并缓解了流动性问题。我们发现，第三种设置结合了第一种和第二种设置的优点。市场表现与有公共信息的设置一样好，并且优于有私人信息的设置。与第一种设置不同的是，参与者可以从信息优势中受益。因此，信息的发布不会损害预测市场的功能。我们的结论是，为了将预测市场整合到科学研究实践中，使用补贴的做市商并使市场与当前的出版实践保持一致是有利的。
