Gold, Silver, and Bronze: Determining National Success in Men's and Women’s Summer Olympic Events

The Effect of Gender Equality on International Soccer Performance

“…The results of our first model, excluding country and time fixed effects, reveal that the international success of both male and female soccer teams increases with their country's population size and wealth, i.e., an increase in both variables improves a country's ranking position, which is in line with the findings of previous literature (see, e.g., Hoffmann et al, 2006;Leeds and Leeds, 2009). The country's climate, however, does not affect the soccer performance of men and women.…”

“…Given that soccer is played at a professional level all over the world and has the highest global television audience in sport (FIFA, 2007b), a large and growing body of literature is concerned with the determinants of international soccer success. While some authors have analyzed the determinants of soccer performance in general (e.g., Hoffmann et al, 2002;Leeds and Leeds, 2009), others have been specifically interested in the influencing factors of women's success (e.g., Torgler, 2008;Cho, 2013). While the latter studies have shown that the international success of female soccer teams is positively correlated with women's economic opportunities and political rights in their country, they provide no evidence on the causal impact of gender equality on the international soccer performance of women.…”

“…Starting with Hoffmann et al (2002) and followed by Torgler (2004), Macmillan and Smith (2007), and Leeds and Leeds (2009), this research has shown that a country's wealth, its sports culture, and its climate have a significant impact on its performance in international soccer competitions. These results are similar to those of studies of the determinants of Olympic success (see, e.g., Bernard and Busse, 2004;Hoffmann et al, 2004;Johnson and Ali, 2004;Trivedi and Zimmer, 2013).…”

“…The few studies that do exist (see, Hoffmann et al (2006), Torgler (2008), Congdon-Hohman (2011), andCho (2013) for soccer and Klein (2004), Leeds and Leeds (2012), Bredtmann et al (2014), and Lowen et al (2014) for the 1 The impact of sports results in international competitions, however, even goes beyond purely economic effects. For instance, Carroll et al (2002) show that the risk of admissions for heart attacks at English hospitals increased by 25 percent on the day of England's loss to Argentina in a penalty shoot-out in the 1998 World Cup.…”

An Old Boys Club No More

“…There is a growing body of empirical research on the Olympics: Some of this work (Bernard & Busse, 2004;Celik & Gius, 2014;Johnson & Ali, 2004;Lui & Suen, 2008) has tested the determinants of total NOC medal outcomes at the Summer Games, while related efforts have focused on the performance of particular regions (Hoffmann, Lee, & Ramasamy, 2004). 4 Other researchers (Klein, 2004;Leeds & Leeds, 2012;Lowen, Deaner, & Schmitt, 2014;Noland & Stahler, 2014) studied female athletic inclusion and success specifically. A third group of researchers have statistically modeled outcomes for the Winter Games (Pfau, 2006) and for individual sports (Balmer, Nevill, & Williams, 2001Tcha & Pershin, 2003;Otamendi & Doncel, 2014).…”