Here’s a cool idea: a stock market where you can trade in shares of the political parties. The final values of the shares will be determined by the election results, so if you can accurately predict the results, you can make some money by buying shares that are undervalued and selling ones that are overvalued. It’s all done with real money, so you have a financial incentive to make serious predictions.

Teodora and I have been participating since the market opened on December 13, and so far we’ve managed to lose $10 or so. But there’s still a couple weeks to go, so hopefully we can make that back and maybe end up a bit ahead.

This is definitely a cool project to get involved in if you’re interested in politics. It’s actually a research project being done by the University of British Columbia. They’ve had similar markets for previous elections, and they’ve done a pretty good job of predicting the final results.