How does the avian influenza market work?
We recruit doctors, nurses, researchers, epidemiologists, public health and other medical workers who have some knowledge of avian influenza activity. Traders in the avian influenza market are participants in the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED), an online information exchange to monitor emerging diseases. Each trader is given an educational grant with which to trade. This grant grows or shrinks depending upon the accuracy of the individual trader’s predictions. The unit of exchange for this market is the “Avian Flu dollar” (Avian $); thus, transactions will be made in these units. Each participant’s account will be endowed with Avian$25.00 for each set of contracts when trading is initiated. Contracts to be traded in the market are based on different aspects of avian influenza activity around the world during specific time periods. Contracts will be introduced in sets of two, one for each possible event outcome. Contracts that denote the actual outcome will have a liq
