Predicting Olympic Medal Counts: the Effects of Economic Development on Olympic Performance

Authors

Xun Bian '05, Illinois Wesleyan University

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between a country's Olympic performance and its overall economic condition, including population, economic resources, and political structures. A panel data set comprising the yearly data of 1996, 2000, and 2004 are estimated by using a fixed effect Tobit regression model. Following the previous studies on this topic, population size and economic resources are measured by using population and per capita GDP. One major focus of this research is the influence of political structure on national Olympic performance. Instead of using a socialist and non-socialist dummy variable like most previous studies, I used continuous variables, political freedom (PF) and civil liberty (CL), to estimate the impact of political structure.

Recommended Citation

Bian '05, Xun (2006) "Predicting Olympic Medal Counts: the Effects of Economic Development on Olympic Performance," Undergraduate Economic Review: Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 4.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/uer/vol2/iss1/4