2010 Election Prediction Analysis Part I

Well given my prediction for the 2010 Elections, I'm claiming victory/validation. The Republicans have picked up a net of 63 seats in the House, exactly the same as my prediction. Of course I'm claiming victory now before the final two seats are called and make my prediction not exactly correct. Also, I only got the correct number by missing about ten seats in each direction. Lastly, my Senate prediction was not really all that great, over-predicting the Republican gain by two seats. However, those last three points are just details.

Domed Stadium in Los Angeles?

In last week's Monday Morning Quarterback, it was mentioned that there is talk of building a retractable-dome stadium in Los Angeles (about halfway down the page). Why would LA need a domed stadium? To deal with the three days of rain that the area gets a year? Because of the brutal 60-degree cold days? Of course the story mentions that it would be so they could host the Final Four. However, retractable domes add a lot to the cost of a stadium and adding one to host two or three Final Fours over the life of the stadium seems pretty excessive. If this was a privately-financed facility no one would undertake the cost associated with adding a roof, but since the taxpayer is on the hook why not add a 200-million dollar roof?

2010 Election Predictions

Since my 2010 Econ Nobel Prize prediction was so on the mark, I have decided to predict the 2010 US elections. Gains for the GOP:

House: +63 (net)

Without listing every seat, here is the list of some marginal seats I predict victory in:

AZ 8, ID 1, IL 14, KY 6, MO 4, NC 2, 7 and 8, NH 2, NY 23, OH 6, OR 5, and WV 1.

Seats lost by the GOP:

DE AL, IL 10, and LA 2. (Barely holding HI 1 and FL 25)

Marginal seats GOP misses barely:

AR 4, AZ 7, CA 20, CT 4 and 5, MI 9, MN 8, NY 1 and 24, OH 18, VA 9 and 11. (They also lose races that they should have done better in IA 3, IN 2, and PA 12).

 

Senate: +8

Gains: AR, CO, IL, IN, ND, NV, PA, and WI (GOP loses close race in WA)

The GOP holds all currently held Senate seats.

For additional perspectives and invaluable resources in making my predictions:

538

Jay Cost

Nobel Prize in Econ Prediction

My last minute predictions for the Nobel Prize in Economics. For more enlightened and informed commentary, see Greg
Mankiw and Tyler
Cowen.

1. Lars P. Hanse and/or Hal White. Econometrics has not been awarded in a while and the current economic conditions would suggest rewarding more theoretical economists.

2. Richard Thaler and/or Robert Schiller. These seem to be the favorites.

3. Paul Romer. Macroeconomics has not been awarded recently but given the short-run macroeconomy, they probably won't give it to most of the macroeconomist. Romer is of course known for growth theory, so I think they might go in this direction.

4. Gordon Tullock. Most people think he missed his chance, so I'm just being contrarian with this choice.

The Best Sports Weekend

Though there would be some worthy contenders for the title, this coming weekend seems like the top choice for best-sports-weekend. College football has advanced (for the most part) past the cupcake portion of the schedules, but is still early enough that there are plenty of teams with meaningful games. The NFL is going strong. Baseball comes down to its final weekend with the prospect of do-or-die games after a grueling summer. Throw the Ryder Cup on top and you have a pretty great weekend of sports.

Of course it is not looking as compelling as it was a few days ago. Monsoon-season hitting Wales has messed up the Ryder Cup, and the Cubs taking 3 of 4 from the Padres has left us with the possibility of everything in baseball being decided by tonight.

The New Big 10 Divisional Alignment Part III: Too Much Tradition?

Dennis Dodd at CBS Sports argues that the Big 10 paid too much respect to tradition in terms of it scheduling with the new division alignment.

His particular complaint was that the Ohio St.-Michigan game would remain on the last weekend of the season:

The problem is that tradition won out over that bold, bright world. "The Game" will remain on the last Saturday in November, diminishing the chances for a rematch in the championship game.

And

"There was discussion, Delany said, of moving Ohio State-Michigan to earlier in November. That would have at least created a better possibility for a rematch. The loser would have at least had a chance to "rehab" itself by winning out over the next month. Do-or-die on the last Saturday in November makes it mostly die for the loser."

I do not understand this. If the two teams play earlier in the season, that would have just as big of an impact on the divisional race as a game on the last weekend of the season. Actually it would seem that it would more likely lead to a re-match in the Title game. If one of the team's is in a do-or-die situation and the other has already clinched its division, the team in the do-or-die situation will probably have a greater chance of winning than an earlier point in the season. The non-do-or-die team would presumably be the better team, as they already won their division. So under normal circumstances, like an early November game, they would be more likely to win, decreasing the probability of a re-match relative to the last week of the season.

Actually the problem with this setup is that the re-match is too likely. The same two teams playing on back-to-back weeks is less intriguing than other possibilities. The obvious solution to this problem would have been to put Michigan and Ohio St. in the same division.

The New Big 10 Divisional Alignment Part II: Geography

I had planned to have a couple of posts last week that I just did not have time for and am going to try and catch up this week.

Division 1: Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan State, Northwestern, Minnesota

Division 2: Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois

In some respects this is a curious course. The conference could have split down geographically pretty easy into:
East: Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio St., Penn St., Indiana and Purdue

West: Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska

Typically I think that many people worry too much about geography when determining divisions. How can the Dallas Cowboys be in the East? How can the Indianapolis Colts be in the South? However, I think these concerns are overblown. The two reasons for having geographically compact divisions are that they lead to greater rivalries and that the timing of games work out better if the teams are in the same time zone. However, in the Cowboys case, would the rivalries actually be more intense if the Cowboys played in the same division as the Saints and Texans than they are with the Eagles, Redskins and Giants? The time-zone issue is less important for the Cowboys because the game times are either completely pre-set for national games or during the day. Also one time zone difference is not that important like the three-zone difference between Eastern and Pacific.
Returning to the Big 10 expansion, time zones probably don’t matter too much in this case. However, the biggest rivals tend to be between the teams that are next to each other, so why not just break down the divisions geographically. The East with Penn St., Ohio St. and Michigan might be a little stronger than the West. But the West would still have Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin, so it would not be any bigger of a mismatch than the current Big 12 North-South breakdown.