Olympics: We Know the Winners. Now, Let the Games Begin.

“In a

study released on Aug. 28, Andrew Bernard, of the Tuck

School of Business at Dartmouth College, and Meghan R.

Busse, of the Yale School of Management, examined Summer

Olympics medal counts for the last 40 years to see what

factors determine how many medals each nation wins…. Like so many paradigm-shifting breakthroughs, the formula

discovered by Mr. Bernard and Ms. Busse is beautiful in its

simplicity.

Just two factors account for 95 percent of a nation’s

predicted medal count: the number of medals it won at a

previous Olympics, and the overall size of its economy.” New York Times