Chris Blattman

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A development economist’s guide to decide what team to root for in the World Cup

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The basic principle is simple, drawn from utilitarian principles: Root for the outcome that will produce the largest aggregate increase in happiness. So I came up with a simple index, calculated by a country’s passion for soccer multiplied by its average level of poverty multiplied by its population. It’s perhaps a bit crude, simply to multiply these factors by each other, but the exercise highlights some important truths about the world.

…I incorporate poverty into the score for several reasons. First, happiness and wealth are correlated, and all else being equal, a utilitarian would prefer to help the person who is worst off. Second, the wealthy have more outlets for dealing with sports disappointments — such as going out to a nice meal — and can bounce back faster.

50 Responses

  1. In response to Soccer fan’s question, “If poverty, population, and passion for soccer are controlled for, what explains the apparent heterogeneity in performance?” Clearly it’s settler mortality rates.

  2. Shouldn’t one take into account diminishing marginal utility from world cup victories? This would push Brazil down the ranking a bit…

  3. If poverty, population, and passion for soccer are controlled for, what explains the apparent heterogeneity in performance?

  4. This assumes fans are nationals. Seems there is variation in regional vs. national support – i.e. I suspect support of teams is more national than regional in Latin America and Europe, but more regional than national in Africa (widespread support of all the African teams). So, the fan base of African teams may extend further than those teams in other regions. Just a hunch.

  5. Interesting, but that’s an economist’s view. A political scientist would recognize that being a fan of soccer doesn’t imply any affinity with the national team. You’d have to weight the scores by some measure of national unity — which I suspect would tank Nigeria’s chances.

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