Olympic Medals, Economy, Geography and Politics from Sydney to Rio

The Olympic Medals Ranks, lexicographic ordering and numerical infinities

Several ways used to rank countries with respect to medals won during Olympic Games are discussed. In particular, it is shown that the unofficial rank used by the Olympic Committee is the only rank that does not allow one to use a numerical counter for ranking – this rank uses the lexicographic ordering to rank countries: one gold medal is more precious than any number of silver medals and one ...

Olympic medals or long life: what's the bottom line?

On a per capita basis, Australia spent more than seven times as much on its Sydney Olympic team as did Canada, to win four times as many medals. Compared with Australia, Canada spent an additional amount per capita (standardised to the purchasing power parity rate at year 2000) of US dollars 1605 per life-year gained on healthcare in 2000. Neither country is "right" or "wrong" in making these f...

Dying to Win? Olympic Gold Medals and Longevity Russell Ackoff Doctoral Student Fellowship, 2014 Application

Description Large differences in mortality across and within countries are only partially explained by variation in income, education, diet, and other factors (Cutler et al., 2006). One possible determinant of health that remains particularly poorly understood is status, which can loosely be defined as relative economic or social ranking. While the biology and epidemiology literatures have adva...

Health surveillance during the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

THE SYDNEY 2000 OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC GAMES By the time the Olympic Games began, over 11,300 athletes and 5,100 officials from 200 countries had arrived in Sydney. Over the Games period, a succession of mass gatherings took place, including the Olympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies. The latter event saw 110,000 spectators and thousands of athletes at Stadium Australia, and an estimated 1,000,...

Information Politics, Pollution Geography, and Changing Riskscapes

This paper reports on initial findings of a research project that examines the effects of information disclosure policies on environmental decisionmaking, specifically, actions related to control of toxic chemical emissions in the United States. The project seeks to determine why some companies do more to reduce toxic chemical pollution than others and why some communities encourage such pollut...

Politics and the Macro Economy