Coalition for Political Forecasting Executive Director Pratik Chougule cited the Coalition in his September 9, 2023 op-ed in Townhall.com, “Bureaucrat Prediction Records Show They Shouldn’t Have More Antitrust Powers.”

Below is an excerpt:

A judicious approach to antitrust requires bureaucrats to make accurate predictions about the consequences of proposed mergers and the risks of regulation.

Yet the history of antitrust regulation is replete with forecasting errors. This is because antitrust enforcement stretches the limits of regulators’ ability to understand the complexities of corporate decision-making and whether they are competitive or anticompetitive in nature.

The antitrust domain is also saddled with challenges that undermine good forecasting throughout the government generally. Antitrust regulation is the province of the same lawmakers, technocrats, corporate executives, and experts who are neither skilled in nor rewarded for making accurate predictions.

The Biden administration is not only empowering antitrust experts with poor forecasting credentials, it is stymieing reforms that could help the government produce betting predictions.

One solution long championed by economists to improve forecasts is prediction markets. The idea is to allow traders to wager money in betting markets on important questions for society. A prediction market could offer lines, for example, on how a merger might impact corporate earnings. Movements in these prediction markets, informed by the analysis of traders with skin in the game, could produce forecasts more accurate than bureaucrats.

For reasons that remain unclear, Biden appointees at the CFTC are refusing to give prediction market companies permission to offer these types of contracts.

The full piece is available here.