Abstract des Autors

Previous research on the home advantage in the history of the Olympic Games has
found initial evidence that host nations have won more medals than non-hosts. In
this paper, we argue that these findings are a myth of sports history, providing poor
estimates of the home advantage in the Olympics. We argue that selection bias
accounts for the findings in previous work, which uses an empirical strategy of
comparing host nations to all non-hosts and to historical performances of host
countries with much smaller delegations. When we correct for this bias the evidence
in favour of a hosting advantage disappears. Additionally, we argue that the existing
literature has largely neglected the rules about athlete qualification for host
countries. To the extent that a small home advantage does exist, it is almost entirely
driven by increased participation rates.