Club football and economic dynamism: a regional analysis for Europe
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David Castells-Quintana [1] ; Roberto Gasquez [2]
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[1] Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Barcelona, España
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[2] Universitat de Barcelona
Universitat de Barcelona
Barcelona, España
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- Localización: Working papers (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Economia Aplicada), Nº. 2, 2024
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The connection between sports and development has long been highlighted in academia and policy debates. But the extent to which the success of professional sport teams can spur economic dynamism has hardly been studied in the literature. In this paper, we look at the potential connection between sporting success and economic development. We focus on club football and economic dynamism in European regions. To do so, we build a unique dataset with information for 395 football clubs, matched with economic information for 295 NUTS3 European regions, for the 2000- 2020 period. Using several econometric techniques, we find robust evidence of a positive connection between club success and regional economic performance. This connection seems especially strong when sporting success comes from relatively modest clubs.
