[iainmerrick]

Huh, yeah, that sounds very plausible.

A forecast that really did try to be an option pricing model like that would be interesting to see. It would have the advantage over a “now cast” that you could actually run the numbers and see how accurate it is. Whereas nobody can ever know what would actually happen if there were an election now rather than a year from now.

[dragonwriter]

> A forecast that really did try to be an option pricing model like that would be interesting to see.

Silver’s election forecast models are exactly that. The nowcast expressly is not, but it's also not the headline model.

> It would have the advantage over a “now cast” that you could actually run the numbers and see how accurate it is.

That's true, and not just in theory: Silver has recently run the numbers for all of 538s forecasts (together and separated by sports vs. elections) and they are relatively accurate but not perfect; the supporting data is available for download, too.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/

[iainmerrick]

Aha, thanks for clarifying that. I actually read that article, but the earlier comment got me confused over whether it was merely validating the final forecasts, or all forecasts over time.

Makes sense that it was written as an explicit rebuttal to Taleb -- but without mentioning him directly. :)