Polls to probabilities: Comparing prediction markets and opinion polls

J Reade and Leighton Vaughan Williams

International Journal of Forecasting, 2019, vol. 35, issue 1, 336-350

Abstract: The forecasting of election outcomes is a hugely popular activity, and not without reason: the outcomes can have significant economic impacts, for example on stock prices. As such, it is economically important, as well as of academic interest, to determine the forecasting methods that have historically performed best. However, the forecasts are often incompatible, as some are in terms of vote shares while others are probabilistic outcome forecasts. This paper sets out an empirical method for transforming opinion poll vote shares into probabilistic forecasts, and then evaluates the performances of prediction markets and opinion polls. We make comparisons along two dimensions, bias and precision, and find that converted opinion polls perform well in terms of bias, while prediction markets are good for precision.

Keywords: Forecasting models; Information and knowledge; Elections; Voting behaviour; Prediction markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:intfor:v:35:y:2019:i:1:p:336-350

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2018.04.001

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