Abstract

The research contributes to recent literature on the socioeconomic determinants of Olympic success at the national level. The authors act under the assumption that less corruption increases the chances of national Olympic success. Verf.-Referat (geändert)
Much research has been done in recent years to trace socioeconomic determinants of Olympic success at the national level. Results of this research show that variables like GDP per capita, population size, and lagged medal counts explain a substantial proportion of the cross country variation in national Olympic success. The authors show that Olympic success at the national level also depends on the level of corruption in a country. The motivation for studying the link between corruption and Olympic success at the national level is, that as Shughart and Tollison (1993) argued, Olympic success should depend on whether athlets can appropriate the returns and rewards for winning Olympic medals. Corruption is likely to deteriorate the chances of athletes to appropriate rewards for winning an Olympic medal. Aus der Einleitung (leicht geändert)