The passage below is quoted from a WSJ summary of an article that appeared in the July 9-16, 2007 issue of The New Yorker:
(p. B8) The most successful media prediction market is the Hollywood Stock Exchange. According to a study by Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse, the markets’ forecasts of box-office performance are off by 16% on average. That’s astonishing accuracy for an industry which, despite all kinds of attempts to predict what will work, assumes that the vast majority of its product will fail at the box office.
For the full summary, see:
“The Informed Reader; Marketing; What’s the Next Big Thing? Prediction Markets Answer.” Wall Street Journal (Mon., July 2, 2007): B8.