Governance, gender inequality, and olympic success

This paper uses a Tobit model on data obtained from the World Bank and the International Olympic Committee to examine the economic, climatic, and political factors that increase the share of medals won in the Summer Olympic Games.  This study adds to the existing literature by replacing dummy variables indicating political regime with the World Bank’s World Governance Indicators and by including the United Nation’s Gender Inequality Index.  Furthermore, climate is accounted for by including each nation’s share of population residing in each of the six KGT world climate classification zones.  Preliminary results indicate that, apart from the traditional macroeconomic determinants of success, the government’s effectiveness in providing high-quality public services are positively correlated with medal shares, while a nations ability to enforce the rule of law is inversely correlated with medal shares.