There’s another piece up at Slate.com about economics of the Olympics. This time, it’s Colorado College’s Daniel Johnson continuing research project — simple econometric specifications to predict medal counts. The explanatory variables are the number of country medals as a function of population (+), per capita income (+), climate (colder is better), political variables (openness not necessarily a good thing), and the host-nation advantage.
The upshot? Canada 27, the US 26, and Bangladesh 0. The predictions are also broken down by gold, silver, and bronze.
Here’s the Slate piece.