Research Projects
Why Research?
As our name indicates, Mercury Research and Consulting is committed to conducting ground-breaking research in prediction markets. Through our efforts, we aim to demonstrate the success of prediction markets in real-life scenarios, as well as generate a deeper understanding of their use. One research project has already been concluded and published, and others are in development. We aim to publish academic articles in a variety of relevant journals, as well as more accessible articles in the popular press.
Small Market Research
In the summer of 2006, Jed Christiansen ran an extensive series of prediction markets to examine how effective they were in solving difficult forecasting problems. Perhaps more importantly, it started to examine what participation levels are necessary in order to get quality results.
This paper on this research project was accepted for publication in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Prediction Markets, scheduled to be published in late 2006. The working draft of the paper (PDF) can be found here.
A special note of thanks to Inkling Markets for hosting the prediction markets used for this project, and Professor Larry Phillips of the London School of Economics.