IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hcx/wpaper/1902.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is there an Economic Case for the Olympic Games?

Author

Listed:
  • Chris Dempsey

    (No Boston Olympics)

  • Victor Matheson

    (Department of Economics and Accounting, College of the Holy CrossAuthor-Name: Victor Matheson)

  • Andrew Zimbalist

    (Department of Economics, Smith College)

Abstract

The Olympic Games are a major undertaking that promise both large costs and potentially large benefits to host cities. This paper lays out the potential economic benefits of hosting the Olympics and details how, in the vast majority of cases, these gains are unlikely to cover the costs of hosting the event. The ideas are then applied to the experience of Boston in its ultimately unsuccessful bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Suggested Citation

  • Chris Dempsey & Victor Matheson & Andrew Zimbalist, 2019. "Is there an Economic Case for the Olympic Games?," Working Papers 1902, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hcx:wpaper:1902
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hcapps.holycross.edu/hcs/RePEc/hcx/HC1902-Matheson-Dempsey-Zimbalist_Olympics.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert A. Baade & Victor A. Matheson, 2016. "Going for the Gold: The Economics of the Olympics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 201-218, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Raffaello Bronzini & Sauro Mocetti & Matteo Mongardini, 2020. "The economic effects of big events: Evidence from the great jubilee 2000 in Rome," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 801-822, September.
    2. John C. Whitehead & Pamela Wicker, 2024. "The effect of event quality on participants’ intention to revisit a sport event: Monetary valuation and mitigation of hypothetical bias," Working Papers 24-14, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    3. Bent Flyvbjerg & Allison Stewart & Alexander Budzier, 2016. "The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost and Cost Overrun at the Games," Papers 1607.04484, arXiv.org.
    4. Christopher Vierhaus, 2019. "The international tourism effect of hosting the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup," Tourism Economics, , vol. 25(7), pages 1009-1028, November.
    5. Michał Marcin Kobierecki & Michał Pierzgalski, 2022. "Sports Mega-Events and Economic Growth: A Synthetic Control Approach," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(5), pages 567-597, June.
    6. Albanese, Giuseppe & Ciani, Emanuele & de Blasio, Guido, 2021. "Anything new in town? The local effects of urban regeneration policies in Italy," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    7. Shoag, Daniel & Veuger, Stan, 2017. "Taking My Talents to South Beach (and Back)," Working Paper Series rwp17-019, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    8. Martin Thomas Falk & Markku Vieru, 2021. "Short-term hotel room price effects of sporting events," Tourism Economics, , vol. 27(3), pages 569-588, May.
    9. Seung-Jin Han & Won-Jae Lee & So-Hee Kim & Sang-Hoon Yoon & Won Shick Ryu & Hyunwoong Pyun & Daehwan Kim, 2022. "Effects of the Olympic Announcement and the Actual Event on Property Values: The Case of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-16, July.
    10. Jean-Jacques Gouguet & Christophe Lepetit, 2017. "The Economic Impact Of Euro 2016. Methodological Aspects," Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport, Centro di diritto e business dello Sport, vol. 13(2), pages 153-171, settembre.
    11. Petri Lintumäki & Hannes Winner & Sabrina Scheiber & Anna Mederle & Martin Schnitzer, 2020. "The Economic Impact of Participant Sports Events: A Case Study for the Winter World Masters Games 2020 in Tyrol, Austria," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-23, November.
    12. Brachert, Matthias, 2018. "The regional effects of professional sports franchises: Causal evidence from four European football leagues," IWH Discussion Papers 10/2018, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    13. Sven Daniel Wolfe, 2023. "Building a better host city? Reforming and contesting the Olympics in Paris 2024," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 41(2), pages 257-273, March.
    14. Dolan, Paul & Kavetsos, Georgios & Krekel, Christian & Mavridis, Dimitris & Metcalfe, Robert & Senik, Claudia & Szymanski, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2019. "Quantifying the intangible impact of the Olympics using subjective well-being data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 1-1.
    15. Kobe Helsen & Marijke Taks & Jeroen Scheerder, 2022. "Involvement, Social Impact Experiences, and Event Support of Host Residents Before, during, and after the 2021 UCI Road World Championships," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-22, August.
    16. Bent Flyvbjerg & Alexander Budzier & Daniel Lunn, 2021. "Regression to the tail: Why the Olympics blow up," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(2), pages 233-260, March.
    17. Brad R. Humphreys & Bruce K. Johnson & John C. Whitehead, 2020. "Validity and reliability of contingent valuation and life satisfaction measures of welfare: An application to the value of national Olympic success," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(1), pages 316-330, July.
    18. Martin Schnitzer & Lukas Haizinger, 2019. "Does the Olympic Agenda 2020 Have the Power to Create a New Olympic Heritage? An Analysis for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games Bid," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-21, January.
    19. Tobias Streicher & Sascha L. Schmidt & Dominik Schreyer, 2019. "Referenda on Hosting the Olympics: What Drives Voter Turnout?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(5), pages 627-653, June.
    20. Matthias Firgo & Oliver Fritz, 2023. "Regionalwirtschaftliche und touristische Effekte von Sportgroßveranstaltungen," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 96(7), pages 481-490, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Olympics; mega-events; impact analysis; Boston; tourism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z28 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics - - - Policy
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R53 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Public Facility Location Analysis; Public Investment and Capital Stock

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hcx:wpaper:1902. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Victor Matheson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deholus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.