IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-11-00722.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the determinants of sporting success – A note on the Olympic Games

Author

Listed:
  • Eike Emrich

    (Saarland University)

  • Markus Klein

    (Saarland University)

  • Werner Pitsch

    (Saarland University)

  • Christian Pierdzioch

    (Helmut-Schmidt-University)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Eike Emrich & Markus Klein & Werner Pitsch & Christian Pierdzioch, 2012. "On the determinants of sporting success – A note on the Olympic Games," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(3), pages 1890-1901.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-11-00722
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2012/Volume32/EB-12-V32-I3-P183.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Dawson & Stephen Dobson & Bill Gerrard, 2000. "Estimating Coaching Efficiency in Professional Team Sports: Evidence from English Association Football," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 47(4), pages 399-421, September.
    2. Robert Hoffmann & Lee Chew Ging & Bala Ramasamy, 2004. "Olympic Success and ASEAN Countries," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(3), pages 262-276, August.
    3. Mark Baimbridge, 1998. "Outcome uncertainty in sporting competition: the Olympic Games 1896-1996," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 161-164.
    4. Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & Stefan Szymanski, 2006. "Goal! Profit maximization and win maximization in football leagues," Working Papers 0621, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.
    5. Dobson, Stephen & Goddard, John, 2010. "Optimizing strategic behaviour in a dynamic setting in professional team sports," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 205(3), pages 661-669, September.
    6. Daniel K. N. Johnson & Ayfer Ali, 2004. "A Tale of Two Seasons: Participation and Medal Counts at the Summer and Winter Olympic Games," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 85(4), pages 974-993, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Schlembach, Christoph & Schmidt, Sascha L. & Schreyer, Dominik & Wunderlich, Linus, 2022. "Forecasting the Olympic medal distribution – A socioeconomic machine learning model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    2. Alexandre de Cássio Rodrigues & Carlos Alberto Gonçalves & Tiago Silveira Gontijo, 2019. "A two-stage DEA model to evaluate the efficiency of countries at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(2), pages 1538-1545.
    3. Christian Pierdzioch & Eike Emrich, 2013. "A Note on Corruption and National Olympic Success," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 41(4), pages 405-411, December.
    4. Barth, Michael & Emrich, Eike & Daumann, Frank, 2017. "Evaluation of sporting success in Austria: An institutional economics analysis," Working Papers of the European Institute for Socioeconomics 20, European Institute for Socioeconomics (EIS), Saarbrücken.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Loek Groot, 2012. "The Contest for Olympic Success as a Public Good," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 21(1), pages 102-117, March.
    2. Vagenas, George & Vlachokyriakou, Eleni, 2012. "Olympic medals and demo-economic factors: Novel predictors, the ex-host effect, the exact role of team size, and the “population-GDP” model revisited," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 211-217.
    3. Franklin G. Mixon Jr. & Richard J. Cebula, 2022. "Property Rights Freedom and Innovation: Eponymous Skills in Women's Gymnastics," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(4), pages 407-430, May.
    4. Pedro Garcia‐del‐Barrio & Carlos Gomez‐Gonzalez & José Manuel Sánchez‐Santos, 2020. "Popularity and Visibility Appraisals for Computing Olympic Medal Rankings," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2137-2157, September.
    5. John Manuel Luiz & Riyas Fadal, 2011. "An economic analysis of sports performance in Africa," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 38(10), pages 869-883, August.
    6. Schlembach, Christoph & Schmidt, Sascha L. & Schreyer, Dominik & Wunderlich, Linus, 2022. "Forecasting the Olympic medal distribution – A socioeconomic machine learning model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    7. T. Potts, 2014. "Governance, corruption and Olympic success," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(31), pages 3882-3891, November.
    8. Loek Groot, 2012. "An Olympic Level Playing Field? The Contest for Olympic Success as a Public Good," Journal of Economics and Econometrics, Economics and Econometrics Society, vol. 55(2), pages 25-50.
    9. L.F.M. Groot, 2007. "The welfare optimal distribution of Olympic Success considered as a public good," Working Papers 07-13, Utrecht School of Economics.
    10. Caroline Buts & Cind Du Bois & Bruno Heyndels & Marc Jegers, 2013. "Socioeconomic Determinants of Success at the Summer Paralympics," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(2), pages 133-147, April.
    11. Julia Bredtmann & Carsten J. Crede & Sebastian Otten, 2014. "The Effect of Gender Equality on International Soccer Performance," University of East Anglia Applied and Financial Economics Working Paper Series 065, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    12. Todd B. Potts, 2022. "Does it pay to Play by the Rules? Respect for Rule of law, Control of Corruption, and National Success at the Summer Olympics," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(2), pages 222-245, February.
    13. Marcus Noland, 2016. "Russian Doping in Sports," Working Paper Series WP16-4, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    14. Marcus Noland & Kevin Stahler, 2017. "An Old Boys Club No More," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(5), pages 506-536, June.
    15. Johan Rewilak, 2021. "The (non) determinants of Olympic success," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(5), pages 546-570, June.
    16. Fereidouni, Hassan Gholipour & Foroughi, Behzad & Tajaddini, Reza & Najdi, Youhanna, 2015. "Sport facilities and sporting success in Iran: The Resource Curse Hypothesis," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1005-1018.
    17. Christian Pierdzioch & Eike Emrich, 2013. "A Note on Corruption and National Olympic Success," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 41(4), pages 405-411, December.
    18. Pravin K. Trivedi & David M. Zimmer, 2014. "Success at the Summer Olympics: How Much Do Economic Factors Explain?," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-34, December.
    19. Kavetsos, Georgios & Szymanski, Stefan, 2010. "National well-being and international sports events," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 158-171, April.
    20. Marcus Noland & Kevin Stahler, 2016. "Asian Participation and Performance at the Olympic Games," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 11(1), pages 70-90, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Olympic Games; sporting success; population size; GDP per capita; political economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P5 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-11-00722. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.