The National Journal Political Stock Exchange

Our cousin company, National Journal, has partnered with Intrade to launch the first branded political stock exchange this cycle.

We call it NJPSE.

I'll be writing a weekly handicapping column that will be tasked with explaining why youse all decided to buy who you bought and sell who you sold.

In one sense, the exchange represents the apocalypse for good-government types who bemoan the application of horse race and football metaphors to politics. Sorry about that.

But from our vantage point, it's a novel way to get a sense for the aggregate daily swings of opinion among the political elites. If you believe -- as I believe -- that the political elites can influence the worldviews of the non-elites, then there is some merit to this venture.

Regardless, it's fun. And it's free -- we'll give you free (fake) NJ Dollars to play with.

Please check it out. Fairly soon, when the gods of IT are smiling, I'll add a ticker of NJPSE data points to this page.

Comments

Why bet Monopoly money when you could be making real money on Intrade?

Posted by Petey | September 18, 2007 9:15 AM

If this futures market is being run without real money, doesn't it run the very real risk of being gamed by supporters of particular campaigns for the purpose of making their candidates seem stronger and of receiving favorable coverage on this blog and National Journal. As we know, non-scientific internet polls are extremely prone to being gamed already. What's to stop this market from being similarly gamed?

Posted by Jonathan Singer | September 18, 2007 10:28 AM

I agree with Jonathan. Not only will it be used by campaigns to manipulate the findings, but it also won't be as accurate as if people had real money on the line. Personal preferences and biases when 'forcasting' tend to diminish with the more (real) money one has on the line. If I really liked Richardson, for example, I'm going to put my fake money on him, despite his small chances. So instead of it acting like a futures market, it will just wind up acting like a general opinion poll.

Posted by Ben | September 18, 2007 12:27 PM

I'll join - I'd rather not bet my real meager savings on candidates, and it's a good way of testing my market analysis against that of other political junkies.

Posted by Caroline | September 18, 2007 3:16 PM

Yeah Marc, this won't work so well if it's fake money. You have to attach real value to it, like a prize or something if someone has the most NJ bucks later.

People need incentive to trade on a daily basis to make more.

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