Who Wins The Olympic Games: Economic Development and Medal Totals (original) (raw)
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Who wins the Olympic Games: Economic resources and medal totals
Review of Economics and Statistics, 2004
This paper examines determinants of Olympic success at the country level. Does the U.S. win its fair share of Olympic medals? Why does China win 6% of the medals even though it has 1/5 of the world's population? We consider the role of population and economic resources in determining medal totals from 1960-1996. We also provide out of sample predictions for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. * 100 Tuck Hall, Hanover, NH 03755,
Olympic Participation and Performance since 1896
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2001
We analyze the decision to participate and Olympic performance at the country level. We use an unbalanced panel of 118 countries over 24 editions of the Olympic Summer Games. The main focus of the paper is on economic, geographic and demographic explanations of Olympic participation and success. We estimate the impact of income per capita, population size, home advantage, and institutional variables on participation and success rates. We present separate results for events before the Second World War and after. These results show that income is an important determinant of Olympic participation and success. Socialist countries send more athletes to the games and have more success in medal counts. The home advantage has become less prominent.
International Journal of Economic Policy in Emerging Economies, 2013
Starting from an econometric model successfully used to explain and then predict the distribution of medal wins across nations at the Beijing Summer Olympics, a similar model is elaborated on with some different explanatory variables for estimating the determinants of medals won per nation at Winter Games. A Tobit estimation of the model based on data from 1964 to 2010 shows that GDP per capita, population, the endowment in ski and winter sports resorts, and a host country dummy are significant determinants of medal wins at Winter Olympics. Then the estimated model is used for predicting the sporting outcomes at the 2014 Sochi Games with a focus on Russia and China. The Russian team is expected to perform better than in Vancouver 2010 and to be ranked fourth behind the USA, Germany and Canada while the Chinese team would be ranked ninth, a performance doomed to improve in the future given China's swift economic development.
An analysis of country medal shares in individual sports at the Olympics
European Sport Management Quarterly, 2016
Research question: Several studies report modelling relating countries' medal shares at the Olympics to population and per capita income (host status and political system are typically included as controls). This paper uses a similar model but disaggregates to the level of the individual sport to ask questions such as whether some sports have a less steep relationship with income levels than others and whether hosting effects are more pronounced in some sports than others. Research methods: Employing a random effects tobit model, data on medal shares are modelled across fifteen sports at six editions of the Games (1992-2012). Marginal effects, calculated for the case of cycling, illustrate how far many poor countries are from reasonable expectation of achieving medals. Results and findings: Income is influential on outcomes in all sports, its effects most pronounced in sports with substantial requirements for specific capital equipment; the distribution of medals is less unequal in sports practised in multi-sports venues. Gains from hosting vary in magnitude, performance tending to be elevated most in sports with outcomes strongly influenced by judges. Implications: For poorer countries, the paper identifies a small group of sports on which it would be most realistic to focus resources. For Games organisers, who must decide which sports to include, it provides information relevant to the goal of spreading success more evenly across countries. For example, proposals to exclude wrestling are shown to have been potentially harmful to medal prospects of poorer countries.
Economic Determinants of Success in Olympic Games
turkish journal of sport and exercise, 2021
Sport economics is defined as the application of economic theories for analyzing of sport activities in which Olympic Games are the most famous ones. Activities in such games are measured by the number of medals that a certain country obtains. One way to predict medals winning by countries is to consider economic strength of the country in addition to the abilities of athletics. In this study, the effect of the most important economic factors on medals winning, such as Population, GDP per capita, and also hosting and the experience from past times in Olympics as explanatory variables are considered, which have not been reflected so far in the related studies. These variables are appropriate for the assessment of the potential of countries' success in Olympics. The data which is used, is in form of discrete data. Accordingly, Poisson Regression model is suitable for the purpose of this study. The period of examination is from 1992-2016 for evaluating the availability of having more medals in Olympics. The results, indicate a positive and significant relationship between economic factors, hosting and experiences in Olympic progressing. Since, countries expect from Olympics Games to derive more medals after the use of their resources, which have been allocated for this purpose, the study suggests that success in the Olympic need to consider the importance of economic factors.
Economic evaluation of the Olympic Games
International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology, 2019
The purpose of this paper and study i.e. to figure which key economic factors can help us explain country performance (medals) in the Olympics. The paper focuses on 3 key objectives, namely: To produce a list of possible key economic factors that can explain Olympic performance. To produce a simple Mathematical model based on these factors which could possibly predict the Olympic tally at a country level. To identify the degree to which these factors will influence Olympic performance the study has been carried out in a way to develop a conceptual model and to analyze the hypotheses. I have considered the Beijing Olympics 2008 Games, sampled with 83 countries and 946 medals for the study. Based on the findings of the study, a few recommendations have been made, which if implemented in developing countries like India, may contribute to improving the sport performance of these countries in the future.
Journal of Human Sport and Exercise
Just weeks before the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, this work examined the connection between winning Olympic medals at the London 2012 Games and the participating nations' population size, Gross Domestic Product Per Capita (GDP-PC), and average annual temperature as based on the 'demographic-', 'economic-', and 'geographical' hypotheses (Hoffmann et al., 2002). The three dependent measures jointly accounted for 45% of the variance in winning Olympic medals (p < .001; effect size = 0.82). The contribution of the GDP-PC was relatively moderate (11%). The largest proportion of the variance in winning Olympic medals was explained by the nations' population size (27%). The average national temperature has accounted for a small portion of the variance (7%). Accordingly, the average temperature and GDP-PC had statistically significant, but modest roles in winning medals during the London Games, while the influence of the nations' population size was high. The three measures examined have explained nearly half of the total variance accounting in winning Olympic medals in London.
International Journal of Sport Finance, 2019
This study adds to the debate about the relationship between the Olympic Games and socio-economic factors. It is the first empirical work testing if economic, political, and social determinants (as well as the prospects of success) help to forecast which countries will submit an Olympic bid to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). On the basis of the biddings for the eight Summer Olympic Games from 1992 to 2020, we find that countries recording larger economic growth are more likely to bid. Also, Olympic bids are more probable from nations with stable election results, recent improvements in health standards, and more international tourism arrivals. Finally, countries at least implicitly assess their chances of winning the Olympic host city election when considering a bid.
On the determinants of sporting success – A note on the Olympic Games
Economics Bulletin
We analyzed whether, in democratic open societies, economic and demographic conditions allow sporting success at the aggregate level to be predicted. Theoretical considerations led to the hypothesis that the population size and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita should be important determinants of sporting success. Using regression analysis, we analyzed the influence of population size and GDP per capita on sporting success in Olympic Summer and Winter Games (1992 – 2010). Regarding the Olympic summer games, we found that the most powerful predictor is population size. In contrast, GDP per capita seems to play an important role as a predictor of sporting success with respect to the Olympic winter games.