CSIRO economists have developed the Australian Knowledge Exchange (AKX) – an online prediction market which aims to forecast water availability.
The AKX has been set up by CSIRO to test whether trading knowledge online can work for water management and decision-making. The AKX is effectively a prediction market which aims to forecast future events. Traders in the AKX use their knowledge to buy and sell ‘virtual stocks’ in an online marketplace. The market price for these stocks represents the consensus forecast of the traders in the market.
In the current simulation study, the researchers are assessing whether traders can combine their knowledge to predict dam levels in the region, in much the same way as stock market traders predict future prices of commodities like oil.
Interested people can register online, get $100,000 play money and start trading predictions. At the end of each month for three months, the trader who has predicted the dam levels most closely will win a small cash prize.
