A medal share model for Olympic performance

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

January 2015

Abstract

A sizable empirical literature relates a nation's Olympic performance to socioeconomic factors by adopting linear regression or a Tobit approach suggested by Bernard and Busse (2004). We propose an alternative model where a nation's medal share depends on its competitiveness relative to other nations and the model is logically consistent. Empirical evidence shows that our model fits data better than the existing linear regression and Tobit model. Besides Olympic Games, the proposed model and its estimation method could also be similarly applied to other settings with competitions.

Journal Title

Economics Bulletin

Volume

35

Issue

2

First Page

1065

Last Page

1070

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS