A study of efficiency in New Zealand election prediction markers

<p>The development of prediction markets has naturally given rise to studies of their efficiency. Most studies of efficiency in prediction markets have focused on the speed with which they incorporate information. A necessary (but not sufficient) condition of efficiency is that arbitrage opportunities must non-existent or transitory in nature so that the systematic generation of abnormal profits is not possible. Using data from New Zealand’s first prediction market, iPredict, I examine the potential for arbitrage in the contracts for the party vote for the 2011 General Election. Relative to the risk-free interest rate, the returns from arbitrage are generally low, consistent with an efficient market. Regression analysis requires that the data not be subject to the possibility of spurious regressions - something that is not addressed in the literature. After confirming the non-stationarity of the price level and the stationarity of the price changes by the unit root test, I use the iPredict data in conjunction with opinion poll data to test whether the polls impact on market pricing behaviour. Using a number of different model types, I find that the opinion poll data has a very limited impact on market prices, suggesting that the information contained in the poll is largely already incorporated into market prices.</p>

A study of efficiency in New Zealand election prediction markers

<p>The development of prediction markets has naturally given rise to studies of their efficiency. Most studies of efficiency in prediction markets have focused on the speed with which they incorporate information. A necessary (but not sufficient) condition of efficiency is that arbitrage opportunities must non-existent or transitory in nature so that the systematic generation of abnormal profits is not possible. Using data from New Zealand’s first prediction market, iPredict, I examine the potential for arbitrage in the contracts for the party vote for the 2011 General Election. Relative to the risk-free interest rate, the returns from arbitrage are generally low, consistent with an efficient market. Regression analysis requires that the data not be subject to the possibility of spurious regressions - something that is not addressed in the literature. After confirming the non-stationarity of the price level and the stationarity of the price changes by the unit root test, I use the iPredict data in conjunction with opinion poll data to test whether the polls impact on market pricing behaviour. Using a number of different model types, I find that the opinion poll data has a very limited impact on market prices, suggesting that the information contained in the poll is largely already incorporated into market prices.</p>

The physics of people’s opinions

This paper explores the abstraction of classical physics and applies several metrics that explore the evolution of social opinion. These metrics include an abstraction of Newtonian kinematics: mass, position, speed, acceleration, and Newtonian dynamics, an abstraction of force. Poll data is fit to a 2nd-order polynomial and a logistic function. These fits are used to understand the acceleration of opinion shift, and we explore recent social, cultural, and environmental trends, such as views on global climate change. We compare our results with the evolution of communication technologies and time spent on devices over the past 120 years. We show that the model connects the evolution in opinion with an abstraction of a Galilean concept: acceleration is independent of mass. Finally, we discuss the model of social polarization and the non-linear effect of media such as echo chambers.

The curious story of the 2018 Romanian traditional family referendum: buck-passing and the failure to mobilise voters

In 2018, a referendum to revise the Constitution took place in Romania. Just one article was in contention for revision. The goal was to make gay marriage unconstitutional. In the end, the referendum failed due to a low turnout of just 21.1%, below the 30% threshold required for validation. This paper looks into the causes of the low turnout. First, there is an overview of knowns and unknowns, such as lack of exit poll data and issues with the voting population numbers. The bulk of the paper deals with two overlapping narratives about the causes of low turnout - first, a boycott campaign and second, a combination of factors, especially low mobilisation. Using precinct level results, supplemented by pre and post referendum polling data, an examination of evidence for both narratives is put forward. The results provide a case for failure of mobilisation by main political parties and religious organisations, especially the Orthodox Church, despite public statements of support for a “Yes” vote in the referendum. In turn, this was based on a buck-passing strategy by political parties and religious organisations.

Modeling Combination of Question Order Effect, Response Replicability Effect, and QQ-Equality with Quantum Instruments

We continue to analyze basic constraints on human's decision making from the viewpoint of quantum measurement theory (QMT). As has been found, the conventional QMT based on the projection postulate cannot account for combination of the question order effect (QOE) and the response replicability effect (RRE). This was an alarm signal for quantum-like modeling of decision making. Recently, it was shown that this objection to quantum-like modeling can be removed on the basis of the general QMT based on quantum instruments. In the present paper we analyse the problem of combination of QOE, RRE, and the famous QQ-equality (QQE). This equality was derived by Busemeyer and Wang and it was shown (in the joint paper with Solloway and Shiffrin) that statistical data from many social opinion polls satisfies it. Now, we construct quantum instruments satisfying QOE, RRE, and QQE. The general features of our approach are formalized with postulates which generalize {\it Wang-Busemeyer} postulates for quantum-like modeling of decision making. Moreover, we show that our model closely reproduces the statistics of the famous Clinton-Gore Poll data with a prior belief state independent of the question order. This model successfully removes the order effect from the data to determine the genuine distribution of the opinions in the Poll. The paper also provides a psychologist-friendly introduction to the theory of quantum instruments - the most general mathematical framework for quantum measurements. We hope that this theory will attract attention of psychologists and will stimulate further applications.

The securitization of refugees in Hong Kong: government, members of the legislative council and Chinese newspapers (2005 to June 2019)

Purpose This paper explores how the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSARG) securitizes internal security, cultural identity and welfare system through refugee policy instruments. It also aims to explore the roles of members of the Legislative Council (Legco) and Chinese newspapers in the securitization process. Design/methodology/approach The author analyzed 6 landmark verdicts, 342 related documents of the Legco, 2,386 news coverages and 408 editorials/ column articles from 6 selected Chinese newspapers from 2005 to mid-2019. While documents of the Legco were collected from the Legco archives, news reports, editorials and column articles were gathered on Wisenews with the keywords, namely, refugees, asylum seekers, torture claims and non-refoulement claims. Findings The author argues that the advanced comprehensive security approach helps to comprehend the securitization process in Hong Kong. The HKSARG, Legco members of the pro-government camp and pro-government Chinese newspapers perform as securitizing actors who regard refugees as an existential threat to the referent objects, i.e. internal security, cultural identity and welfare system. Research limitations/implications There are two significant limitations, namely, the coverage of newspapers and the absence of poll data. This paper merely selected six Chinese newspapers, which do not cover English newspapers and some other Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong. It may neglect some important data. Additionally, owing to the absence of longitudinal poll data, the author chose not to examine the related materials. Originality/value This paper intends to be the first study to provide a longitudinal examination of the transformations of current refugee policies in Hong Kong.

Delineating market boundaries in the Russian mass notification market: An application of critical loss analysis

Telecom companies are a frequent target of antitrust investigations in Russia. In an industry where services tend to become more and more complex and companies actively invest in diversifying their businesses, the antitrust authority in most of its telecom cases has chosen to define markets narrowly, which increases antitrust risks for the companies. This paper uses poll data on mass SMS notifications — a market in recently investigated by the FAS Russia — to demonstrate, using critical loss analysis, that the market should be defined in broader terms. In particular, the main empirical finding is that the relevant product market boundaries should cover not only SMS, but also email, messengers and push and voice notifications.

Pre-poll data leak will embarrass Israel’s Likud

Headline ISRAEL: Pre-poll data leak will embarrass Likud

Democracy, Race, and the Socialist Project in the United States

This paper examines the relationship between race, socialism, and democracy in America. It is organized into five sections and a conclusion. The first section explores how socialism has been viewed by many black leaders and intellectuals as necessary, imperative perhaps, in the black struggle for material equality, and further investigates the relationship of this black perspective on socialism to white opposition. The second section uses the most recent historical work to identify the factors that have the stalled the development of socialism in America. I also assess how these factors have changed or not in terms of making the socialist project more likely. In the third section, I analyze available poll data on American opinion about socialism from the 1930s to the present. While the data show unambiguously increased support for socialism since the 1930s, socialism does not today command the support of a majority of the American people. In the fourth section I examine the paradigmatic Franklin Roosevelt presidency on how liberal Democratic presidents have avoided the socialist label while embracing socialist programs. The fifth section is a brief examination of what socialism—really existing socialism—means in the early twenty-first century, and the idea of “socialist smuggling” as manifested in the presidencies of FDR and Lyndon Johnson. The speculative conclusion asks what are the prospects for the socialist project, and whether the white liberal cosmopolitan bourgeoisie rather than the white working class might become a mass base for the socialist project.

MODELING VOTING DYNAMICS IN A TWO-PARTY SYSTEM

The 2016 U.S. presidential primary election, characterized by unexpected results, provides an interesting context to study how citizens are influenced in deciding whether to vote and whom to support. Our aim is to determine which of those changes in voting behavior have the largest impact on the election outcome. We address this question by developing a class of models driven either by the effect of mass media or by social interaction among voters and non-voting members of two parties. The dynamics are modeled using four compartments with a transition matrix describing the evolution of a discrete-time Markov chain. Each model is studied and fit to poll data from the 2012 and 2016 U.S. presidential elections using numerical methods. A comparison across elections indicates that the social influence of each group changes from one election to another, but response to media is similar in both cases.