Predicting the future is serious business for virtually all public and private institutions, for they must often make important decisions based upon such predictions. This visionary book explores how institutions from legislatures to corporations might improve their predictions and arrive at better decisions by means of prediction markets, a promising new tool with virtually unlimited potential applications. Michael Abramowicz explains how prediction markets work; why they accurately forecast elections, sports contests, and other events; and how they may even advance the ideals of our system of republican government. He also explores the ways in which prediction markets address common problems related to institutional decision making. Throughout the book, the author extends current thinking about prediction markets and offers imaginative proposals for their use in an array of settings and situations.

Michael Abramowicz is associate professor of law, George Washington University.

"Will Hillary or Arnold ever be elected? Will "Die Hard VIII" be a hit? Will the HP merger go through? Will Sanjaya be voted off this week? Our best evidence on all these questions increasingly comes from prediction markets. We already live in a world where orange juice future prices can usefully supplement the best government weather predictions. But "Predictocracy "shows that we're just scratching the surface of what can be done with this powerful tool. Abramowicz's inventive mind shows new ways to design prediction markets and radically new domains to predict. In this new world, peer reviewed journals, legal restatements, even deliberative democracy may ultimately be guided by the force of predictive bets."--Ian Ayres, Professor, Yale Law School and author of "Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart"
--Ian Ayres