The bidding paradox: why rational politicians still want to bid for mega sports events

Michiel De Nooij and Marcel van den Berg

No 13-09, Working Papers from Utrecht School of Economics

Abstract: This paper discusses reasons why politicians still favor hosting mega events despite the discouraging evidence regarding their financial benefits: (1) early political enthusiasm, (2) tying side-projects to the bid to raise political support, (3) biased reading of history, (4) the winners curse, (5) redistribution and lobbying, (6) a media bias in favor of hosting and (7) boosting happiness and pride of residents. Bringing happiness to the people might be a valid reason for hosting a mega event, however, economists are yet insufficiently capable of capturing this effect. Moreover, alternative explanations for political support cannot be deemed invalid ex ante.

Keywords: Bidding; mega sport events; Olympic games; lobbying; happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ppm, nep-spo and nep-tur
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/309788/13_09_2.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:use:tkiwps:1309

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Utrecht School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Marina Muilwijk ().