CYCLES, SHOCKS, AND SENTIMENT: REUNIFICATION, REALIGNMENT OF PUBLIC SPENDING AND THE CYCLICAL GROWTH-NATIONAL SPORTING SUCCES NEXUS

This study analyzes the relationship between cyclical growth and national sporting success. The literature attributes this nexus to two channels: pro-cyclical public spending for national sports or a sort of q-driven investment activity induced by national sporting success. To analyze whether such a relationship can be established using German data, we adhere to a primarily descriptive methodology. We examine daily stock market data and macroeconomic time series in annual and quarterly frequency for a relationship between these data and the results of roughly 500 matches played by the German national soccer squad in the period from 1959 to 2004. Our methods of choice are techniques from time series analysis and event study analysis. We are able to establish a nexus in the decades prior to German reunification. This relationship fades in the period after reunification. As a result the nexus for the total period is obscured and asymmetric. For the stock market, it is predominantly a pessimistic market that coincides with losses of the national team. As it is virtually impossible to disentangle the spending channel from q-driven investment effects, we attribute this finding to both disproportionate expectations and a realignment of public spending in the aftermath of reunification.MACROECONOMIC COMOVEMENT, NATIONAL SPORTS, REUNIFICATION

Induced Civic Pride and Integration

This paper investigates whether a nation’s contingent value of hosting a mega-event depends on past experience with implied public goods benefits for its residents. Applying data from an ex-ante and ex-post query based on contingent valuation methods, we use the FIFA World Cup 2006 as a natural experiment. The significant ex-post increase in valuation is shown to be due to adventitious citizens requiring an involving experience, rather than to an updating of a prior assessment. The World Cup finals were the first mega-event hosted by reunified Germany. We use this landmark event in German contemporary history to investigate how the integration of the two parts of Germany progressed after 18 years of reunification. We still find a profound difference in clear-sighted civic awareness of East and West German individuals. However, civic pride induced by collective experience can considerably accelerate the convergence of East Germans’ preferences towards those of West Germans, which Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln (2007) recently calculated to take 20 to 40 years or one and a half generation.experience goods, contingent valuation, civic awareness, German reunification

Mega-sporting Events as Experience Goods

This paper tests the hypothesis that a nation’s hosting of a mega-sporting event is an experience good for its residents. Applying data from an ex-ante and ex-post query based on contingent valuation methods, we use the Soccer World Cup 2006 as a natural experiment. The significant ex-post increase in valuation is shown to be due to adventitious citizens requiring an involving experience, rather than to an updating of a-prior assessment.Experience goods, contingent valuation method, World Cup

Mega-sporting events as experience goods

This paper tests the hypothesis that a nation's hosting of a mega-sporting event is an experience good for its residents. Applying data from an ex-ante and ex-post query based on contingent valuation methods, we use the Soccer World Cup 2006 as a natural experiment. The significant ex-post increase in valuation is shown to be due to adventitious citizens requiring an involving experience, rather than to an updating of aprior assessment

Induced civic pride and integration

This paper investigates whether a nation's contingent value of hosting a mega-event depends on past experience with implied public goods benefits for its residents. Applying data from an ex-ante and ex-post query based on contingent valuation methods, we use the FIFA World Cup 2006 as a natural experiment. The significant ex-post increase in valuation is shown to be due to adventitious citizens requiring an involving experience, rather than to an updating of a prior assessment. The World Cup finals were the first mega-event hosted by reunified Germany. We use this landmark event in German contemporary history to investigate how the integration of the two parts of Germany progressed after 18 years of reunification. We still find a profound difference in clear-sighted civic awareness of East and West German individuals. However, civic pride induced by collective experience can considerably accelerate the convergence of East Germans' preferences towards those of West Germans, which Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln (2007) recently calculated to take 20 to 40 years or one and a half generation

Hidden Value: Wohlfahrtsökonomische Effekte internationaler Sportgroßveranstaltungen | Eine Betrachtung vom anderen Ende des Contingent-Valuation-Spektrums: Maradona- vs. Beckenbauer-Effekt

This paper analyzes and quantifies the intangible benefits for the German population resultant from Germany's hosting of the FIFA Soccer World Cup 2006. We compare this legacy of Franz Beckenbauer with welfare effects generated by athletic success of the German national squad, labelled "Maradona-Effect" by Rätzel and Weimann (2006) and summarized in Brenke and Wagner (2006). Our analysis relies on data from two contingent valuation surveys before and after the tournament

Mega-Sporting Events as Experience Goods

This paper tests the hypothesis that a nation’s hosting of a mega-sporting event is an experience good for its residents. Applying data from an ex-ante and ex-post query based on contingent valuation methods, we use the Soccer World Cup 2006 as a natural experiment. The significant ex-post increase in valuation is shown to be due to adventitious citizens requiring an involving experience, rather than to an updating of a-prior assessment.Experience goods, contingent valuation method, World Cup

Fast Simultaneous CO2 Gas Temperature and Concentration Measurements by Quantum Cascade Laser Absorption Spectroscopy

A quantum cascade laser-based sensing technique is presented which allows for in situ high-precision temperature and/or CO2 concentration measurements of gases in the room temperature regime with sampling rates up to about 40 kHz. The method is based on Boltzmann-like thermally populated fundamental and hot-band rovibrational transitions of CO2 with opposite temperature dependence. Single absorption spectra at about 2350 to 2352 cm−1 are recorded by a nanosecond frequency down chirped IR pulse of a pulsed distributed feedback quantum cascade laser (intrapulse mode). The statistical uncertainty (1σ) in the temperature measurement within one laser pulse is about 1 K and can be further reduced down to about 0.1 K by time averaging over 100 ms. Online temperature and CO2 concentration measurements on a breath simulator controlled gas flow were performed to demonstrate response-time and sensitivity for an application-driven test system

Fast Simultaneous CO2 Gas Temperature and Concentration Measurements by Quantum Cascade Laser Absorption Spectroscopy

A quantum cascade laser-based sensing technique is presented which allows for in situ high-precision temperature and/or CO2 concentration measurements of gases in the room temperature regime with sampling rates up to about 40 kHz. The method is based on Boltzmann-like thermally populated fundamental and hot-band rovibrational transitions of CO2 with opposite temperature dependence. Single absorption spectra at about 2350 to 2352 cm−1 are recorded by a nanosecond frequency down chirped IR pulse of a pulsed distributed feedback quantum cascade laser (intrapulse mode). The statistical uncertainty (1σ) in the temperature measurement within one laser pulse is about 1 K and can be further reduced down to about 0.1 K by time averaging over 100 ms. Online temperature and CO2 concentration measurements on a breath simulator controlled gas flow were performed to demonstrate response-time and sensitivity for an application-driven test system