The Miracle on Thin Ice: How A Nation's GDP Affects its Olympic Performance

Abstract

The Olympics offer participating countries the opportunity to promote their best athletes and compete with other countries. In this paper, we compare and test country statistics in order to determine what factors have a large impact on their Olympic performance. We estimate that GDP per capita is the main determinant to a country’s successful Olympic performance, quantified by amount of gold, silver, and bronze medals a country receives. However, our results indicate that country size and health care expenditure per capita were significant in determining Olympic performance as opposed to GDP per capita, disproving our initial hypothesis.