Dr Eric Crampton: Kalshi’s billion-dollar rise shows what iPredict couldn’t achieve in NZ

When Victoria University of Wellington’s great little prediction market, iPredict, announced that it would be shutting down back in 2015, it had a couple hundred thousand dollars of traders’ deposited funds in the bank. It was a very small, very limited, academic enterprise.

Kalshi is a US-based prediction market. It is regulated by America’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC, which fully authorised it in 2023.

Eric Crampton: Missing markets

If punters at Australia’s Betfair are right, there’s an eighty-nine percent chance any government formed after Saturday’s election will have a National Party Prime Minister.

But the things Betfair can’t tell us makes me miss our missing election stock market.

From 2008 through 2015, Victoria University hosted the world’s best election stock market, iPredict.

Frank Newman: Interest rates and ipredictions

There has been a changing of the guard at the Reserve Bank. Alan Bollard has retired after 10 years as Governor and Graeme Wheeler taken on the top job. Mr Wheeler is a former executive at the World Bank and most recently ran a consultancy in the US. 

Although the governor may have changed, the Governor’s message hasn’t. Last week Mr Wheeler left the official cash rate (OCR) at 2.5% saying it is appropriate for now. That has led to a debate about the meaning of “for now” (much like courtroom lawyers arguing about the meaning of “and”). Some say that means an imminent rise, others say a fall. Strong opinions are being advocated for both possibilities.