--- abstract: |- People are willing to pay heavily for expert advice. Economists are consulted to tell us how the economy will change, stock analysts are paid large salaries to forecast the earnings of various companies, and political experts command large fees to tell our leaders what the future holds. The available evidence, however, implies that this money is poorly spent. But because few people pay attention to this evidence, I have come up with what I call the "seersucker theory": "No matter how much evidence exists that seers do not exist, suckers will pay for the existence of seers." altloc: - http://mrkt-sun.wharton.upenn.edu/forecast/paperpdf/seersucker.pdf chapter: ~ commentary: ~ commref: ~ confdates: ~ conference: ~ confloc: ~ contact_email: ~ creators_id: [] creators_name: - family: Armstrong given: J. Scott honourific: '' lineage: '' date: 1980-07 date_type: published datestamp: 2006-10-05 department: ~ dir: disk0/00/00/52/00 edit_lock_since: ~ edit_lock_until: ~ edit_lock_user: ~ editors_id: [] editors_name: [] eprint_status: archive eprintid: 5200 fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png;/5200/1/seersucker.pdf full_text_status: public importid: ~ institution: ~ isbn: ~ ispublished: pub issn: ~ item_issues_comment: [] item_issues_count: 0 item_issues_description: [] item_issues_id: [] item_issues_reported_by: [] item_issues_resolved_by: [] item_issues_status: [] item_issues_timestamp: [] item_issues_type: [] keywords: ~ lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:56:38 latitude: ~ longitude: ~ metadata_visibility: show note: ~ number: ~ pagerange: 16-24 pubdom: FALSE publication: Technology Review publisher: ~ refereed: FALSE referencetext: |- Armstrong, J. Scott, Long-Range Forecasting: From Crystal Ball to Computer. New York: Wiley- Interscience, 1978. 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Wise, George, "The accuracy of technological forecasts, 1890-1940," Futures, 8 (1976): 411- 419 . relation_type: [] relation_uri: [] reportno: ~ rev_number: 12 series: ~ source: ~ status_changed: 2007-09-12 17:07:48 subjects: - behanal succeeds: ~ suggestions: ~ sword_depositor: ~ sword_slug: ~ thesistype: ~ title: 'The Seer-Sucker Theory: The Value of Experts in Forecasting' type: journalp userid: 214 volume: ~