In this episode, I walk through one of the foundational papers in sport economics:
Who Wins the Olympic Games? Economic Resources and Medal Totals
Andrew B. Bernard & Meghan R. Busse (2004)
Review of Economics and Statistics
The question is simple:
If Canada has roughly seven times the population of Finland, shouldn’t that show up proportionally in medal counts?
The intuitive answer is yes.
The data says otherwise.
In this episode we explore:
• Why population does not scale linearly with Olympic success
• What it means to model medals as a “production process”
• Why economists use the logarithm of population instead of raw population
• How diminishing returns are built directly into the math
• The role of GDP and total economic scale
• The host nation effect
• Why success tends to persist across Olympic cycles
The key takeaway:
Scale matters.
Wealth matters.
But once countries are already large and economically developed, the marginal advantage of additional population shrinks.
At national levels, countries are already sampling from the extreme right tail of human ability.
Which raises a deeper question:
If population advantage compresses at elite levels…
what actually separates nations?
That’s where we’re headed next.
If you’re enjoying the deeper systems-level analysis of sport, you can support the show here:
patreon.com/coretexathleticreview
You can also connect with me:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CoretexGoaltending
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Email: ek.coretexgoaltending@gmail.com
