Olympic Games: No legacy for sports

Abstract

Countries whose cities host the Summer Olympic Games increase significantly their success during the competition. We study whether such effect is lasting or not. We compute the effect of hosting on the total number of medals in the subsequent games. To confront the issue that the selection of the host city is endogenous, we use a natural counterfactual: countries whose cities also bid for the Olympics but were not selected by the International Olympic Committee. In all cases, we find that Olympic success on medals fades away immediately after hosting.