Re: The Green and Gold Roads

[brs4@lehigh.edu]

The proposal copied below inspired the following Poindexterian scheme.

Let us imagine a set of new financial futures instruments to be offered on
the likes of http://www.cme.com/

The value of these futures would be determined by the market's current
perception of the value, at various future time intervals (6 months out,
12 months out, etc.), of one contract, consisting of a represenative
sample basket of 1000 journal articles.

Market trading would be predicated on assumptions about such variable
factors as:

(1.) the extent to which each contract, when exercised, will exceed the
current value of a representative basket of 1000 journal articles (let us
designate this the alpha spread)

(2.) fluctuations in the rate at which inflation in journal pricing during
the life of the contract exceeds inflation in the comparable period prior
to the date of issuance of the contracts ("beta")

(3.) the success of various schemes of OA publishing alternatives

(4.) prospects of government intervention in promoting central
repositories of articles.

A secondary market for derivative instruments, such as options futures,
would enable greatly enhanced leveraged while participating in these new
information commodity markets.

If instituted, libraries, when formulating their budgets, could use
current values of journals futures as a basis for establishing rational
expectations about journal pricing for the upcoming fiscal year budgeting.
Administrators need merely to crack open the commodities page of the WSJ,
buy the appropriate contract at the price they consider reasonable, for
delivery at expiration.  Moreover, think of the dangerous allure and
excitement offered by trading in such markets.

Any takers?

P.S. one disanalogy with commodities markets could prove problematic: could 
there--would it make sense to speak of-- a spot market for journal articles? 
And what would it mean to "take delivery"?

___
> All of this back-and-forth makes me wonder if a couple of the altercators
> might not prefer to step outside and settle this at
> http://www.longbets.org -- That website, connected to the Long Now
> Foundation, facilitates betting in the public interest on socially
> important issues with long lead times to resolution.  Find somebody who
> disagrees with you, negotiate and place your bet and put down your money
> and it is immediately a tax-deductible contribution to the foundation.
> When the specified time (min. 2 years) elapses and the bet is resolved,
> Long Bets pays the winning amount to the charity specified by the winning
> bettor.  This would be a way for a couple of folks to get specific about
> their disagreement and make a prediction that most of us could be around
> to evaluate in, say, 5 years.
> 
> Jim O'Donnell
> Georgetown University