GOLDMAN SACHS HAVEÂ come out with a dazzling, 48-page report examining the economics and finances of the imminent London Olympics.
With their permission we’ll be sharing more of the report in a little while.
But first, we wanted to show you their predictions for something that a lot of people will be wondering about: How many medals will each country win?
Analysts José Ursúa and Kamakshya Trivedi actually use econometric models to forecast country-by-country medal count based on previous Olympic performance and economic growth, which is (not surprisingly) positively correlated with Olympic success.
This chart, for example, shows their core idea… showing the relationship between various economic factors, and subsequent additional medals.
And so with that basic idea, here’s their total Olympic medals forecast.
Note that China is actually expected to see a sequential decline in total medals, thanks to the fact that it’s losing its home-country benefit from 2008, when the games were hosted in Beijing. According to Goldman, home countries outperform their expected haul by 54%!
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