Thanks to Miguel over at Simoleon Sense for spotting this one:
Didier Sornette has immersed his life in risk. He rides motorcycles, windsurfs and water skis long stretches of a 120-mile route between Nice and Corsica. Now comes a daunting professional challenge: "The Financial Bubble Experiment."
Mr. Sornette, 52 years old, is the director of the Financial Crisis Observatory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, or as he calls it, "the MIT of Europe." Late last year, he launched the bubble experiment by identifying four developing bubbles and forecasting when they'll peak. His predictions are locked away in encrypted files that can't be altered, to be revealed only when the forecasted bubble peaks have passed, on May 1.
"My colleagues think I am crazy to risk my neck" making such predictions, says Mr. Sornette. Academics tend to be rather cautious, he says, to protect their reputations. "You have to find a guy like me, a maverick who has low risk aversion."...
Eleanor Laise writes over at the Wall Street Journal.
You might also be interested in:
- Didier's Webpage at ETH
- The Financial Crisis Laboratory at ETH
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