Thin Nobel Prize Market

I'm not sure the market for predicting this year's Nobel prizes is working too well. This market allows you to buy and sell "shares" assigned to a person's name. If that person wins a prize, you share in the proceeds.

I don't have a metric for this, but my gut feeling is that this market will do better next year. It sure is fun to watch, but the best result so far has been in physics, where the 5th, 7th, and 8th "highest priced researchers" shared the prize. In chemistry, 2 of the 3 winners were not even suggested, and the third was in the market where he generated no interest. It's even worse in medicine, where the two winners were not even suggested for prizes. Lets hope the economics area fares better, where I think 5-8 of the top prices will win prizes sometime.

This is a good idea, based upon the documented success of the Iowa Electronic Markets for predicting political election outcomes. I think the primary reason the Nobel market isn't working well is that it is too thinly traded. Next year, it will do a better job.

P.S. I'd love to see high priced Margaret Atwood win the prize in literature this year.

P.P.S. Larry Ribstein's Ideoblog made a good case for Gordon Tullock a few days ago. I'll have to start reading his stuff again.