Why are we so good at football, and they so bad? Institutions and national footballing performance

Meshael Batarfi () and J Reade
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Meshael Batarfi: Department of Economics, University of Reading

No em-dp2020-17, Economics Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of Reading

Abstract: The production technology in football is identical for each team that competes. All around the world, a field, goalposts and a ball is all that is required, in addition to players. Yet at each country's highest level, national football teams, vast differences exist across countries. This paper sketches out broad patterns in this variation in performance, and seeks to understand why some countries are very good, whilst others very poor. We investigate a range of macroeconomic, demographic and other explanations and consider the extent to which they explain the observed variation in footballing performance historically. We find that higher level of GDP helps nations to win more often, but that population hinders this. A more developed domestic footballing structure appears to be helpful too.

Keywords: Development; contests; sport (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C20 L83 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2020-07-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-spo
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Published in De Economist, 169(1): 63-80

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http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/FILES/economics/emdp202017.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Why are We So Good At Football, and They So Bad? Institutions and National Footballing Performance (2021)
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