A major donation to boost the Hypermind NGDP market

I am very pleased to announce that Kenneth and Jennifer Duda have agreed to donate $50,000 to the Mercatus Center to help support the Hypermind NGDP prediction market project.  Ken Duda is the CTO of Arista Networks, a major Silicon Valley tech company.  Back in 2014, the Dudas supported the original NGDP prediction market, and more importantly were very generous donors to the Mercatus Center, which allowed for the creation of the Program on Monetary Policy. This is the program that supports the work that David Beckworth and I are engaged in.

As far as I know, Ken and Jennifer are the world’s leading philanthropists in promoting research on monetary policy reform–an area where technical improvements could be worth trillions of dollars (just watch how global stocks react to bad monetary policy decisions), as well as millions of jobs.

The earlier post initially left out some necessary information as to where to donate–apologies for that.  We have added options such as Bitcoin and PayPal, which were requested in the comment section.

I am very excited about this market.  The Dudas’ donation will eventually result in a big jump in the prize level, which should motivate more trading.  (If not, the few people who do trade will be very lucky.)  I anticipate more donations are coming in as well—I’ll keep you posted.  I’ll provide more specifics on prize money when the donation process is completed.

Relatively soon, there should be lots more $100 bills lying on Hypermind’s sidewalk. I don’t think I need to tell you guys what to do.  Pick them up!

PS.  I have a new Econlog post that responds to questions raised in the comment section of the previous request for donations post.


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7 Responses to “A major donation to boost the Hypermind NGDP market”

  1. Gravatar of Matthew Moore Matthew Moore
    24. May 2017 at 05:10

    Missed the previous post, but just to say: Congratulations Scott. This is a great achievement, and raises the bar for what professional economists should do. Good luck.

  2. Gravatar of H_WASSHOI H_WASSHOI
    24. May 2017 at 05:11

    yay

  3. Gravatar of H_WASSHOI H_WASSHOI
    24. May 2017 at 05:40

    I am buying @41 7496 shares.

    I think it is attractive price for some seller.
    (need liquidity)

  4. Gravatar of dlr dlr
    24. May 2017 at 09:02

    Scott,

    I’m curious about the longer term plan here. What is the medium case and best case outcome for this project in 5-10 years? Just a continuous stream or “endowment” if of prize money sustaining a reasonably liquid betting market in one year NGDP futures on hypermind? How much “signal” or liquidity would be considered a success? Or is success judged by whether or how often the contract is referenced by the media or academics or Davis attendees? Or are you hoping to motivate someone to subsidize a regulated trading instrument?

    Thanks.

  5. Gravatar of J Mann J Mann
    24. May 2017 at 09:12

    Can somebody cheer me up about my donation, which is a few orders of magnitude smaller than the Dudas? Maybe it will encourage a person or two to enter on the margin. 🙂

    On the other hand, thanks Kenneth and Jennifer – I think you’re likely to do a lot of good with that donation, and I’m very curious personally to see the results.

    On the subject of unsolicited and possibly counter-helpful advice, next time it might be better to do it as a match or something, at least for a few weeks. It *is* a little discouraging to us small fry. (Alternately, if there were a kickstarter and a t-shirt for contributors, I would be gladly all in.)

  6. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    24. May 2017 at 15:15

    Thanks Matthew.

    dlr, I’m tempted to say “yes” as those are all worthy objectives. I suppose the ultimate goal is to drum up enough interest so that someone else takes the baton and advances the idea even further.

    I’d like to see enough liquidity so that we could observe real time market movements to shocks, and enough correlation with other related markets where it looks relatively efficient. But I don’t have any specific number in mind.

    And of course the ultimate, ultimate goal is for the Fed to target NGDP, using NGDP futures contracts as guardrails.

    Thanks JMann, I really appreciate your donation. Don’t worry about the fact that it seems small relative to the Dudas, every dollar has an impact, and if this project works as hoped even small contribution will do a lot of good.

    After all, people vote in election knowing that they are only one of 100 million votes, but if everyone became fatalistic about that fact then nothing would get done.

    Another way you can contribute (and on equal terms with the Dudas) is to participate in the market, and thus add liquidity.

  7. Gravatar of Hugh D’Andrade Hugh D'Andrade
    26. May 2017 at 17:14

    Scott,
    I don’t know whether or not the plan is to reveal the number of participants, but if you did not, more people might participate believing that a small number of participants would increase their payoff.

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