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Reconsidering Performance at the Summer Olympics and Revealed Comparative Advantage

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  • Moonjoong Tcha
  • Vitaly Pershin

Abstract

This article examines the performance of the participating countries at the Summer Olympic Games. It investigates each country's performance and attempts to identify the determinants of this performance in each sport, and also examines other issues related to specialization at these games, using the concept of revealed comparative advantage (RCA) developed in the field of international economics. Each country's RCA is explained by geographical, biological, and economic variables of the participating countries. Most previous studies investigated the correlation between total/per capita performance and a wide range of variables using a range of methods the authors' consider inappropriate. A few studies employed more appropriate censoring methods; however, they did not consider heteroscedasticity or nonnormality in their regressions that could make the estimates inconsistent. In addition, RCA and specialization in the Olympics has never been analyzed. The analyses present the determinants of each country's specialization in sports and the patterns of RCA, which are substantially different from those obtained when analyzing total and per capita performance. The authors found that high-income countries specialize less; in other words, they win medals in a more diversified range of sports, which is analogous to a country's patterns of specialization in production, a topic frequently explored in international economics.

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  • Moonjoong Tcha & Vitaly Pershin, 2003. "Reconsidering Performance at the Summer Olympics and Revealed Comparative Advantage," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(3), pages 216-239, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:4:y:2003:i:3:p:216-239
    DOI: 10.1177/1527002503251636
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    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Kavetsos, Georgios & Szymanski, Stefan, 2010. "National well-being and international sports events," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 158-171, April.
    7. 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.
    8. 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).
    9. Garry A. Gelade & Paul Dobson, 2007. "Predicting the Comparative Strengths of National Football Teams," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 88(1), pages 244-258, March.
    10. 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.
    11. Nadim Nassif, 2018. "World Ranking Of Countries In Elite Sport," Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport, Centro di diritto e business dello Sport, vol. 14(2), pages 55-75, ottobre.
    12. Leeds Eva Marikova & Leeds Michael A., 2012. "Gold, Silver, and Bronze: Determining National Success in Men’s and Women’s Summer Olympic Events," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 232(3), pages 279-292, June.
    13. Marcus Noland, 2016. "Russian Doping in Sports," Working Paper Series WP16-4, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    14. Alexander Rathke & Ulrich Woitek, 2008. "Economics and the Summer Olympics," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(5), pages 520-537, October.
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