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Unpublished Paper
Interpreting the Predictive Uncertainty of Presidential Elections
(2006)
  • Ray C Fair, Yale University
Abstract
This paper argues that there is an important type of election predictive uncertainty that is not captured by polling standard errors and that can be estimated using data from political betting markets. The idea is that there are a number of possible "conditions" of nature than can exist on election day, of which one is drawn on election day. The uncertainty is which condition will be drawn. A "ranking" assumption is then proposed that greatly restricts the possible conditions of nature. This assumption is strongly supported by data from the Intrade political betting market for the 2004 U.S. presidential election. It is then shown that if the ranking assumption is correct, the two political parties should spend all their money on a few states, which seems consistent with their actual behavior in 2004.
Disciplines
Publication Date
September, 2006
Citation Information
Ray C Fair. "Interpreting the Predictive Uncertainty of Presidential Elections" (2006)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ray_fair/14/