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Convergence versus the middle-income trap: the case of global soccer

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  • Melanie Krause
  • Stefan Szymanski
Abstract
Unconditional convergence across countries worldwide is typically rejected in terms of GDP per capita. But when focusing on a specific internationally competitive industry, such as manufacturing, rather than the overall economy, unconditional convergence has been found to hold. As the epitome of competition and globalization, this paper uses the performance of national soccer teams as a further test case. We rely on data of more than 25,000 games between 1950 and 2014 and find clear evidence of unconditional $$\beta $$β - and $$\sigma $$σ -convergence in national team performance, as measured either by win percentages or goal difference. We argue that transfer of technologies, skills and best practices fosters this catch-up process. But there are limits: we show that good teams from Africa and Asia are failing to close the gap with top European or South American teams for reasons that are analogous to the 'middle income trap'. Lessons for other sectors include the virtues of internationally transferable human capital as well as the mixed blessings of regional integration for worldwide convergence.

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  • Melanie Krause & Stefan Szymanski, 2019. "Convergence versus the middle-income trap: the case of global soccer," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(27), pages 2980-2999, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:51:y:2019:i:27:p:2980-2999
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2018.1564018
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    Cited by:

    1. Kin-Man Wan & Ka-U Ng & Thung-Hong Lin, 2020. "The Political Economy of Football: Democracy, Income Inequality, and Men’s National Football Performance," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 981-1013, October.
    2. Meshael Batarfi & James Reade, 2021. "Why are We So Good At Football, and They So Bad? Institutions and National Footballing Performance," De Economist, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 63-80, February.
    3. Xiaoshan Hu & Guanghua Wan & Chen Yang & Anqi Zhang, 2023. "Inequality and the middle‐income trap," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(7), pages 1684-1710, October.
    4. Joost Bosker & Marc Gürtler, 2024. "The impact of cultural differences on the success of elite labor migration—Evidence from professional soccer," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 341(2), pages 781-824, October.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
    • F20 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - General
    • Z2 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics

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