Abstract
Using a sample of two countries with contrasting economies, the United States and Greece, over a period of seventeen years, I investigate the impacts hosting the Olympics have on an economy. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to look at how public investment impacts a country hosting the Olympics, specifically during a seven-year window surrounding the games, including three years before the games, and three years after. The two main ways for a country to finance or increase public investment is through an increase in tax rate, or by issuing government debt. I hypothesized that public investment will have a larger impact on real GDP per capita, the dependent variable, during the seven-year window surrounding the Olympics, compared to the entire seventeen year window. Results from the OLS regressions run with time-series data suggest that increasing government debt does have a significant impact on real GDP per capita, but not anymore so during the window surrounding the Olympic Games. These results can be explained in a model in which real GDP per capita is a function of tax rates, real gross capital formation per capita, real government debt per capita, unemployment rate, and interest rate.
Advisor
Wang, Shu-Ling
Department
Business Economics
Recommended Citation
Reckart, Kenneth J., "The Impact Increasing Public Investment to Fund the Olympics Games has on a Host Country" (2016). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 7117.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/7117
Publication Date
2016
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis
© Copyright 2016 Kenneth J. Reckart