Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson ( born August 28, 1959) is an American economist. He is a professor at the Department of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax (Virginia ) and free research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford. He is Chief Technical Officer of Consensus Point.

Life

Hanson completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from the University of California, Irvine in 1981. At the University of Chicago in 1984, he received a Master of Science in Physics and a Master of Arts in philosophy of science. After Hanson explored Machine Learning for Lockheed, worked on the project Xanadu, and employed at the Ames Research Center of NASA with Bayesian statistics. His Ph.D. in social sciences, he graduated in 1997 at Caltech. From 1997 to 1999 Hanson conducted research at the University of California, Berkeley in the field of health policy. Since 1999 he is professor at George Mason University.

Hanson is married and the father of two sons. He describes himself as " addicted to view quakes ", for ideas to radically change the world view. His interests include the decentralization of policy issues for the future (including Mind uploading, nanotechnology, cryonics, artificial intelligence, Technological singularity ), Fractal Image Format, quantum mechanics, the legalization of marijuana and the men's movement. Hanson In November 2006, author of the blog Overcoming Bias.

Work

Hanson developed alternative institutions in many different fields, such as for health care, law enforcement, calls or charity. One focus of Hanson's work are prediction markets. Hanson invented several market scoring rules, which evaluate and reward the quality of predictions.

Futarchy

The Futarchie is a proposed modification of the Hanson democracy on the ground with the help of prediction markets to improve policy decisions. The New York Times called it a buzzword of 2008.

Operation

Democratic Voters continue to be used to decide which goals are to be achieved, for example, reduce unemployment, increase of gross domestic product, improving air quality, etc. These objectives must be measurable and could be aggregated in a target index.

Are the goals set is judged on prediction markets, how they can best be achieved. Policy measures may be proposed by any citizen by a deposit. If a policy measure proposed to open two markets: One who predicts the degree of fulfillment of the target index after the implementation of the measure, a second, the degree of performance of the target index for non- implementation of the measure predicts. Every citizen can bet any sum or purchase securities. Should be devoted rates or market prices indicate that the degree of satisfaction after implementation is higher than for non- implementation, the measure is implemented. Ten times the filings by the initiator of the action will be refunded. A predetermined period of time after the implementation of the target index is measured. The investors are paid according to the quality of their forecasts.

Economics

Speculative markets can solve at least two problems of democracy: First, would misinformation and prejudice in substantive issues afflicting democracy, political decisions have a lesser impact than in a democratic election. Second, the incentive problem of policy-advisory expert committees could be eliminated in a democracy, because these experts are not punished in a democracy for wrong advice rewarded for correct advice. In prediction markets they would financially punished or rewarded.

Criticism

The economist Tyler Cowen criticized that the goals are difficult to separate from the action clear.

The lawyer Michael Abramowicz criticized that people would not only have preferences for certain goals, but also for certain measures. These preferences were legitimate and were not considered in the Futarchy.

Swell

  • Grötker, Ralf (2007): govern better. BRAND ONE 10/ 07 ( PDF, 245 kB)
  • Hanson, Robin ( 2009): Open -source govenment: How can we fix our political system? BBC Focus No. 206, p. 21. August 2009.
  • Varian, Hal (2003): A Market Approach to Politics. New York Times. May 8, 2003
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