Economic Inequality and Convergence Through the Lens of Two Sports

Daryna Grechyna and Viktor Grechyn

No 11796, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This paper analyzes the inequalities and convergence across countries using data on the top 100 players in chess and tennis. We explore the impact of time trends and exogenous global shocks on countries' representation in the top 100 players' lists in a manner akin to a natural experiment, comparing chess and tennis while distinguishing among different country income groups. The results indicate the presence of conditional convergence across countries in their representations in the top 100 chess players, but not in the top 100 tennis players. The availability of internet contributed to the reduction of inequalities in chess, a mind-dominated sport, but not in tennis, a wealth-dominated sport. Negative economic shocks, such as the Great Recession and the Covid pandemic, exacerbated the inequalities in tennis, but not in chess.

Keywords: economic convergence; income inequality; global shocks; FIDE chess; ATP tennis; sports. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 O10 Z20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wpNr11796.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11796

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().