IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jinsec/v17y2021i3p411-427_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who are the champions? Inequality, economic freedom and the Olympics

Author

Listed:
  • Kufenko, Vadim
  • Geloso, Vincent

Abstract

Does inequality affect outcomes? To answer, we use the microcosm of Olympic competitions by asking whether a country's level of inequality diminishes its performance. If it does, is it conditional on institutional factors? We argue that the ability of economically free societies to win medals will not be affected by inequality. In these societies, institutions generate incentives to invest in the talents of individuals at the bottom of the income distribution (potential athletes otherwise constrained in the ability to expend resources on training). These effects mitigate those of inequality. The incentives that promote investments in skills across the income distribution are weaker in unfree societies and they cannot mitigate the effects of inequality. Using the Olympics of 2016 in combination with the Economic Freedom data, we find that inequality only matters in determining medal numbers for unfree countries. We link these results to inequality and its effects on economic outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Kufenko, Vadim & Geloso, Vincent, 2021. "Who are the champions? Inequality, economic freedom and the Olympics," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(3), pages 411-427, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jinsec:v:17:y:2021:i:3:p:411-427_4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1744137420000545/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angus Deaton, 2003. "Health, Inequality, and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 113-158, March.
    2. Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2009. "Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the USA: Reconciling Estimates from March CPS and IRS Tax Return Data," Working Papers 09-26, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    4. Alesina, Alberto & Perotti, Roberto, 1996. "Income distribution, political instability, and investment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1203-1228, June.
    5. repec:wvu:wpaper:10-15 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Jan-Egbert Sturm & Jakob De Haan, 2015. "Income Inequality, Capitalism, and Ethno-linguistic Fractionalization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 593-597, May.
    7. James D. Gwartney & Randall G. Holcombe & Robert A. Lawson, 2006. "Institutions and the Impact of Investment on Growth," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 255-273, May.
    8. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(2), pages 553-609.
    9. Joshua C. Hall & Robert A. Lawson, 2014. "Economic Freedom Of The World: An Accounting Of The Literature," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(1), pages 1-19, January.
    10. Francisco H. G. Ferreira & Christoph Lakner & Maria Ana Lugo & Berk Özler, 2018. "Inequality of Opportunity and Economic Growth: How Much Can Cross‐Country Regressions Really Tell Us?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(4), pages 800-827, December.
    11. Leandro Prados De La Escosura, 2016. "Economic freedom in the long run: evidence from OECD countries (1850–2007)," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 69(2), pages 435-468, May.
    12. Bruce E. Hansen, 2000. "Sample Splitting and Threshold Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(3), pages 575-604, May.
    13. Nathan Ashby & Russell Sobel, 2008. "Income inequality and economic freedom in the U.S. states," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 329-346, March.
    14. Sobel, Russell S., 2008. "Testing Baumol: Institutional quality and the productivity of entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 641-655, November.
    15. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2004. "From Physical to Human Capital Accumulation: Inequality and the Process of Development," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(4), pages 1001-1026.
    16. Stroup, Michael D., 2007. "Economic Freedom, Democracy, and the Quality of Life," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 52-66, January.
    17. Richard V. Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen P. Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2012. "Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the United States: Reconciling Estimates from March CPS and IRS Tax Return Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 371-388, May.
    18. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2015. "What Do We Know about the Evolution of Top Wealth Shares in the United States?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 47-66, Winter.
    19. Fogel, Robert W, 1994. "Economic Growth, Population Theory, and Physiology: The Bearing of Long-Term Processes on the Making of Economic Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 369-395, June.
    20. Finis Welch, 1999. "In Defense of Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 1-17, May.
    21. Daniel K. N. Johnson & Ayfer Ali, 2004. "A Tale of Two Seasons: Participation and Medal Counts at the Summer and Winter Olympic Games," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 85(4), pages 974-993, December.
    22. Bowles,Samuel, 2012. "The New Economics of Inequality and Redistribution," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107014039, October.
    23. Kristin J. Forbes, 2000. "A Reassessment of the Relationship between Inequality and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 869-887, September.
    24. Federico Cingano, 2014. "Trends in Income Inequality and its Impact on Economic Growth," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 163, OECD Publishing.
    25. Daniel Halter & Manuel Oechslin & Josef Zweimüller, 2014. "Inequality and growth: the neglected time dimension," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 81-104, March.
    26. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 1-41.
    27. repec:bla:kyklos:v:46:y:1993:i:2:p:263-72 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Lindsay Campbell & Franklin Mixon & W. Sawyer, 2005. "Property Rights and Olympic Success: An Extension," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 33(2), pages 243-244, June.
    29. Scully, Gerald W, 1988. "The Institutional Framework and Economic Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(3), pages 652-662, June.
    30. Bennett, Daniel L. & Vedder, Richard K., 2013. "A Dynamic Analysis of Economic Freedom and Income Inequality in the 50 U.S. States: Empirical Evidence of a Parabolic Relationship," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 43(1).
    31. Oechslin, Manuel & Halter, David, 2010. "Inequality and Growth: The Neglected Time Dimension," CEPR Discussion Papers 8033, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    32. William F. Shughart & Robert D. Tollison, 1993. "Going for the Gold: Property Rights and Athletic Effort in Transitional Economies," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(2), pages 263-272, May.
    33. Marie Laure Delignette-Muller & Christophe Dutang, 2015. "fitdistrplus : An R Package for Fitting Distributions," Post-Print hal-01616147, HAL.
    34. Joshua C. Hall & Russell S. Sobel & George R. Crowley, 2010. "Institutions, Capital, and Growth," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 77(2), pages 385-405, October.
    35. Pravin K. Trivedi & David M. Zimmer, 2014. "Success at the Summer Olympics: How Much Do Economic Factors Explain?," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-34, December.
    36. Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis, 2002. "The Inheritance of Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 3-30, Summer.
    37. Daniel L. Bennett & Boris Nikolaev, 2017. "On the ambiguous economic freedom–inequality relationship," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 717-754, September.
    38. Bowles,Samuel, 2012. "The New Economics of Inequality and Redistribution," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107601604, October.
    39. Bebonchu Atems & Jason Jones, 2015. "Income inequality and economic growth: a panel VAR approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 1541-1561, June.
    40. Christian Pierdzioch & Eike Emrich, 2013. "A Note on Corruption and National Olympic Success," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 41(4), pages 405-411, December.
    41. Andrew B. Bernard & Meghan R. Busse, 2004. "Who Wins the Olympic Games: Economic Resources and Medal Totals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 413-417, February.
    42. repec:wly:soecon:v:81:2:y:2014:p:271-293 is not listed on IDEAS
    43. Delignette-Muller, Marie Laure & Dutang, Christophe, 2015. "fitdistrplus: An R Package for Fitting Distributions," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 64(i04).
    44. Wojciech Kopczuk & Emmanuel Saez & Jae Song, 2010. "Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States: Evidence from Social Security Data Since 1937," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 91-128.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. What sport can tell us about inequality
      by Johan Fourie in Johan Fourie's Blog on 2020-11-23 06:00:49

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kutuk, Yasin, 2022. "Inequality convergence: A world-systems theory approach," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 150-165.
    2. David E. Bloom & Victoria Y. Fan & Vadim Kufenko & Osondu Ogbuoji & Klaus Prettner & Gavin Yamey, 2021. "Going beyond GDP with a parsimonious indicator: inequality-adjusted healthy lifetime income," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 19(1), pages 127-140.
    3. Anna Bykova & Dennis Coates, 2022. "Professional team sporting success: do economic and personal freedom provide competitive advantages?," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 323-358, December.
    4. Franklin G. Mixon Jr. & Richard J. Cebula, 2022. "Property Rights Freedom and Innovation: Eponymous Skills in Women's Gymnastics," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(4), pages 407-430, May.
    5. Justin T. Callais & Vincent Geloso, 2023. "Intergenerational income mobility and economic freedom," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 732-753, January.

    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. Blotevogel, Robert & Imamoglu, Eslem & Moriyama, Kenji & Sarr, Babacar, 2022. "Income inequality measures and economic growth channels," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    2. Dustin Chambers & Colin O’Reilly, 2022. "The economic theory of regulation and inequality," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 193(1), pages 63-78, October.
    3. Justin T. Callais & Vincent Geloso, 2023. "Intergenerational income mobility and economic freedom," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 732-753, January.
    4. Cerra,Valerie & Lama,Ruy & Loayza,Norman V., 2021. "Links between Growth, Inequality, and Poverty : A Survey," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9603, The World Bank.
    5. Paweł Bukowski & Filip Novokmet, 2021. "Between communism and capitalism: long-term inequality in Poland, 1892–2015," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 187-239, June.
    6. Devdatta Ray & Mikael Linden, 2018. "Health, inequality and income: a global study using simultaneous model," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 7(1), pages 1-28, December.
    7. Kutuk, Yasin, 2022. "Inequality convergence: A world-systems theory approach," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 150-165.
    8. Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Ulrike I. Steins, 2020. "Income and Wealth Inequality in America, 1949–2016," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3469-3519.
    9. Orsetta Causa & Alain de Serres & Nicolas Ruiz, 2015. "Can pro-growth policies lift all boats?: An analysis based on household disposable income," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2015(1), pages 227-268.
    10. Ghislain N. Gueye & Hyeongwoo Kim & Gilad Sorek, 2017. "Pitfalls In Testing For Cointegration Between Inequality And The Real Income," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(2), pages 941-950, April.
    11. Burkhauser, Richard V. & De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2016. "Top Incomes and Human Well-being Around the World," IZA Discussion Papers 9677, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Nicholas Apergis & Arusha Cooray, 2017. "Economic Freedom and Income Inequality: Evidence from a Panel of Global Economies— A Linear and a Non-Linear Long-Run Analysis," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(1), pages 88-105, January.
    13. Islam, Md. Rabiul, 2018. "Wealth inequality, democracy and economic freedom," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 920-935.
    14. Robert Breunig & Omer Majeed, 2020. "Inequality, poverty and economic growth," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 161, pages 83-99.
    15. Mikulas Luptacik & Bernhard Mahlberg, 2018. "Revisiting the Efficiency-Equity Trade-off: A Muli-objective Linear Problem combined with an extended Leontief Input Output Model," Department of Economic Policy Working Paper Series 016, Department of Economic Policy, Faculty of National Economy, University of Economics in Bratislava.
    16. Jakub Bartak & Łukasz Jabłoński, 2020. "Inequality and growth: What comes from the different inequality measures?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 185-212, April.
    17. Bukowski, Pawel & Novokmet, Filip, 2021. "Between communism and capitalism: long-term inequality in Poland, 1892–2015," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110221, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Andrew Berg & Jonathan D. Ostry & Charalambos G. Tsangarides & Yorbol Yakhshilikov, 2018. "Redistribution, inequality, and growth: new evidence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 259-305, September.
    19. Robert Breunig & Omer Majeed, 2016. "Inequality or poverty: which is bad for growth?," CAMA Working Papers 2016-43, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    20. Junli Cheng & Feng Lin, 2022. "The Dynamic Effects of Urban–Rural Income Inequality on Sustainable Economic Growth under Urbanization and Monetary Policy in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-23, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • E02 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth

    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:cup:jinsec:v:17:y:2021:i:3:p:411-427_4. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/joi .

    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.