The Economic Determinants of the Olympic Performance in Communist and Post-Communist Countries

Wladimir Andreff ()
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Wladimir Andreff: Pantheon-Sorbonne University

A chapter in Comparative Economic Studies in Europe, 2021, pp 377-412 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The chapter first reminds the statist model of sport, its overshooting Olympic performance, and reforms before its final collapse. Moving towards a market-compatible sport system during the transformational economic crisis was not without hindrances ending up into a hybrid sports industry. All these changes affected Olympic performance downwards. Econometric modelling explains all nations’ medal totals at Summer Olympic Games by GDP per capita, population, a host country effect, regional sport specialisation, and a political regime variable taking on board communist and post-communist specificity. A similar model is adapted to Winter Games by adding two variables, snow coverage and endowment in winter sports resorts. Both models provide a statistically significant explanation of how medal totals have evolved in post-communist nations. Used for forecasting, the Winter Olympics model enables checking the impact of doping on Olympic performance with a natural experiment at the 2014 Sochi Games.

Keywords: Sports economics; Economic transition; Post-communist economies; Olympic games; Econometric modelling; Doping; Z20; Z28; P27; P30; C20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:stuchp:978-3-030-48295-4_18

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-48295-4_18

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