News Shocks in the Data: Olympic Games and Their Macroeconomic Effects

We examine the macroeconomic effects of bidding for the Olympic Games using panel data for 188 countries during the period 1950-2009. Our findings confirm that economies react to news shocks: investment, consumption, and output significantly increase 9 to 7 years before the actual event in bidding countries. Hosting countries also experience significant increases in investment, consumption, and output 5 to 2 years before the hosting of the Games. Mapping the Olympics into a macroeconomic model, we show that we can match our empirical findings if we assume that an Olympic bid represents news about increases in government investment.