Forrest Nelson/ Iowa Electronic Markets

On February 10, Forrest Nelson, one of the founders of the Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM), visited with Professor Chris Conrad's ECB: 352 Financial Management Seminar. He went into detail about how the markets were created and how they are used to predict political elections. The IEM are a group of real-money futures markets operated by the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business. The markets are run for educational and research purposes, allowing traders to buy and sell contracts based on, among other things, political election results and economic indicators. History has proven that the political election results have been highly accurate, often ending up closer to the percentages won in the elections than polls used by the media. Nelson also presented an open lecture about the history and use of the markets.

Nelson has a MS and PhD in Economics from the University of Rochester and a BS in Agricultural Economics from Colorado State University.  His areas of expertise include prediction markets and qualitative and limited dependent variables.