The state of a nation’s economy seem to have a tight correlationship with the score of Olympic medals acquired.
As New York University’s William Easterly points out: (charts from Mr. Easterly too)
“what determines Olympic medals?” The answer is income per capita and population, or in other words total GDP.
But such correlationship may not be perfect.
Mr. Easterly notes of the outliers and of the lessons:
The big underachievers are (in order of underachievement) India, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia.
The big overachievers are Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, Iran, , and Jamaica.
The lessons seem to be:
(1) World Bank national development strategies in key emerging markets have failed miserably in the Olympics sector.
(2) a history of Communism may not have been so awesome for development and liberty, but it’s still amazing for Olympic medals.
(3) Islamist ideology is a mixed medal producer (Saudi Arabia no, Iran yes).
(4) if nothing else works, just run really fast.
Interesting.
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