Karl Whelan

Reminds me of the iCarly episode where the guy from the federal government wanted to shut down ick-arly.

My favourite bit here is how Kennedy calls it Bloo-ski.

The second part focused on "predictions about prediction markets."

1. Biases will decline over time
2. Fees will fall over time
3. Sports prediction market providers will require live data feeds and suspensions for big events.
4. "Fake" taker-only prediction markets (like DK predicts) may win out.

The first part of the presentation focused on the results in my paper with Constantin Bürgi and Wanying Deng: Makers and Takers: The Economics of the Kalshi Prediction Market

www.karlwhelan.com/Papers/Kalsh...

The paper documents a strong favorite-longshot bias pattern in Kalshi's prices.

I gave a presentation on Friday about prediction markets at an NYU Stern Finance conference. Here are the slides

www.karlwhelan.com/Presentation...

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood attack on Green leader Zack Polanski for going to France.

He says she misrepresents his visit, but praises her visit to Lesbos in 2015, as a backbench MP.

Francis Edgeworth died 100 years ago on 13 February 1926. I gave a little paper about him at a very jolly event held in Oxford to mark the occasion, available here:

www.sciencespo.fr/department-e...

#EconSky #econhist

Link gremlins!

Indeed, paper is www.karlwhelan.com/Papers/Kalsh...

And summary is cepr.org/voxeu/column...

I've seen a lot of anti-Kalshi stuff on this site recently. Betting it may be but their prices are pretty decent predictors.

As long as it's not a low probability event. Research summary here

cepr.org/voxeu/column...

Full paper here

www.karlwhelan.com/Papers/Kalsh...

Came across this because I follow George and Matt. You guys might be interested in this study
www.karlwhelan.com/Papers/Kalsh...

Summary on VoxEU released today here
cepr.org/voxeu/column...

Now that’s a headline. 🤡

@financialtimes.com
www.ft.com/content/c39d...

Fed researchers should be disciplined for showing tarrifs raise prices? WTAF. Behind Kevin's smiley exterior, he has turned full-core fascist.

Figure shows the post-fee return across price range sub-samples for 300,000 Kalshi contracts. Kalshi has operated as a federally licensed prediction market in the US since 2021, free from the strict stake limits placed on previous legal prediction markets. This column analyses over 300,000 contracts and their outcomes to demonstrate that Kalshi’s contract prices are informative and improve in accuracy as markets approach closing, but they display a clear favourite-longshot bias. Low-price contracts win far less often than required to break even, while high-price contracts win more often and yield small positive returns.

Constantin Burgi, Wanying Deng, & @karlwhelan.bsky.social @ucddublin.bsky.social show that while Kalshi is useful for aggregating information, the prices should not be interpreted as unbiased probability estimates.
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

This chart seems to suggest a striking pattern: Kevin Warsh's speeches are consistently hawkish, except when Trump is President and about to appoint a new Fed Chair.
www.economist.com/finance-and-...

"I didn't want to hurt this person's feelings by outright rejecting their invitation to go for a drink. But I decided to write about it in the Guardian."

‘How dare you’: South Dublin residents vent at plan to redesignate golf amenities for housing Majority of objections to council proposals relate to Stepaside driving range and Jamestown pitch and putt

Reporting always focuses on outrage rather than benefits. I lived in this area from 2007-15 and know it well. Those golf "amenities" (driving range and pitch and putt) are of limited use to most locals. But they could make for many homes in a nice part of Dublin.

www.irishtimes.com/ireland/dubl...

This Mortal Coil - Song To The Siren (Official Video) YouTube video by 4AD

And you if you’ve never heard Liz Fraser sing it, do yourself a favour and take 3 minutes now.

youtu.be/HFWKJ2FUiAQ?...

If you guys all know about this before and didn’t tell me, I’ll be super annoyed!

Tim Buckley - Song to the Siren (The Monkees '68) Remastered HD YouTube video by TheRightEarOfNash

Somehow I had never seen this before. Tim Buckley singing Song to the Siren on a Monkees TV special in 1968. Incredible.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaa2...

Some material for Chairman-designate Warsh to study. Most of my undergraduates can figure this stuff out so I reckon he can get on top of it before his hearings.

www.karlwhelan.com/IMB/part11.pdf

He's a spoofer.

Would love to be a fly on the wall at the cat-on-mat ample reserves briefings. Some old colleagues of mine working super hard to be as professional as possible while telling the unvarnished truths.

Shorter answer. I don't see a Trump majority FOMC during his (current ....) term.

Warsh will likely replace Miran. Powell will likely quit and be replaced. I think the rest of the board of Governors have terms beyond Trump term. FOMC has the 7 Governors and 5 regional bank presidents, who are appointed by their boards (with BoG approval).

A Bad Heir Day at the Fed No, Kevin Warsh isn’t qualified

Not that anyone asked me but, yes, Warsh is obviously an unqualified hack. In terms of the impact he could have on policy, however, there aren't enough Trump appointees on the current FOMC for the commitee to be pursuaded by Chairman Warsh on policy. paulkrugman.substack.com/p/a-bad-heir...

Jo, I think the one thing we don't need to worry about is that Warsh can somehow jawbone the FOMC into reversing the ample reserves policy. Not only will the rest of the committee not go along but the staff will give him cat-on-mat briefings about it and he will almost certainly drop it.

European leaders hope to avoid Greenland dispute escalating into trade war Macron likely to propose first ever use of bloc’s ‘bazooka’ emergency power to increase its negotiating leverage

Skip the word trade in the headline and you're closer to the truth.

www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

I worked closely with Hassett for about a year at the Fed in the 90s. As his TV persona suggests, he really was a nice guy in person. But his long descent into MAGA hackery has been pretty painful to watch. Hard to know if it's bank account boosting cynicism or he's just lost connection with reality

Lately, I've been working on betting and prediction markets. Here's a working paper on this topic written with two UCD colleagues -- it is (AFAIK) the only systematic analysis of the prices on the Kalshi prediction market. We're still in pre-submission mode so comments\critiques welcome.

Seeing a journalist lose their mind on X, I remember when they misunderstood something to do with solvency/liquidity of banks a few years ago. Attempts to explain were dismissed as "mansplaining". Someone even recommeded my lecture notes! Certainty you're never wrong + social media leads to madness.