Announcement and Call For Participation ********************************************************************* DIMACS Workshop on Information Markets February 2-4, 2005 DIMACS Center, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/Workshops/Markets/ Organizers: Robin Hanson, George Mason University, rhanson -AA@TT- gmu.edu John Ledyard, California Institute of Technology, jledyard -AA@TT- hss.caltech.edu David Pennock, Yahoo! Research Labs, pennockd -AA@TT- yahoo-inc.com Presented under the auspices of the Special Focus on Computation and the Socio-Economic Sciences ********************************************************************* A market designed for information gathering and forecasting is called an information market. Information markets can be used to elicit a collective estimate of the expected value or probability of a random variable, reflecting information dispersed across a population of traders. The degree to which market forecasts approach optimality in practice, or at least surpass other known methods of forecasting, is remarkable. Supporting evidence can be found in empirical studies of options markets, commodity futures markets, political stock markets, sports betting markets, horse racing markets, market games, laboratory investigations of experimental markets, and field tests. In nearly all these cases, market prices reveal a reliable forecast about the likely unfolding of future events, often beating expert opinions or polls. Despite a growing theoretical and experimental literature, many questions remain regarding how best to design, deploy, analyze, and understand information markets, including both technical challenges and social challenges. This workshop will include talks on information markets by a number of distinguished invited speakers. Speakers will cover a range of topics including mechanism design, experiments, analysis, policy, and industry experience. Speakers will include representatives from academia, industry, and government. The workshop will feature research talks, opinions, reports of industry experience, and discussion of government policy from the perspective of a number of fields, including economics, business, finance, computer science, gambling/gaming, and policy. See the workshop program for more details: http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/Workshops/Markets/program.html The workshop will feature a tutorial session on Wednesday afternoon (Feb. 2, 2005) to help those new to the field get up to speed. The workshop will include a panel discussion on the Policy Analysis Market (a.k.a., "Terror Futures") and a "rump" session where anyone who requests time can have the floor for five minutes to speak on any relevant topic. To participate in the rump session, please email David Pennock: pennockd --AA@TT- yahoo-inc.com. ********************************************************************* Registration Fees: (Pre-registration deadline: January 26, 2005) Please see website for additional registration information. ********************************************************************* Information on participation, registration, accomodations, and travel can be found at: http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/Workshops/Markets/ **PLEASE BE SURE TO PRE-REGISTER EARLY** --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@metzdowd.com --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'