Olympic Medals, Social Mobility, and Poverty Reduction

Friends who endured the last semester of graduate school with me may remember my frequent references to a shadowy endeavor I usually called "the Olympics paper". Just in time for Beijing, my former professor and I have finally thrown open the doors to this project and shocked the world with our insights about why India, despite a huge population and a rapidly growing economy, wins so few Olympic medals. Well, that's probably an exaggeration, but we did get this writeup in the UK-based Guardian:

Controversially, the paper contends that social mobility is the key to countries' success at the Olympics. Populations that are better informed and better connected to opportunities, in societies where information and access are widespread "tend to win a higher share of Olympic medals", they said.

It's probably natural to have some quibbles about the way somebody characterizes and reports on something you spent so much time on, and I'm not sure how I feel about getting hit with the "academic" tag, but the article is a pretty good summary of our paper. Those interested in taking a look at the paper itself may do so here.