The 'World Cup effect': does it really improve the economy of the countries that win it?

Win the soccer World Cup. A sporting event that makes our day, destroys gragantas, depletes flags and face paintings in stores ... But, regardless of the rush, does it have a real and lasting effect on the economy of the country that raises the FIFA trophy ?

The investigations that have been based on the activity of the markets and the stock quotes are not conclusive: beyond the increase of articles of merchandising - shirts, balls ... - related to the colors of the winning team or the increase of the amount of the rights for televising the matches, there has not been a measurable effect. Not even the foreseeable improvement of investors' mood - what is known as the "sports feeling hypothesis" - seems to be contagious to the movements of companies listed on the stock exchange, as pointed out by a meta-analysis of several studies carried out in 2017.

This is one of the conclusions drawn by researchers Juan L. Nicolau and Abhinav Sharma, from the Pamplin Business School of the University of Virginia Tech, when reviewing the scientific literature on the subject, as can be read in the Tourism Management magazine .

What has been appreciated, as Nicolau himself observed years ago, is that the maximum football victory can give a boost to the tourism of the winning country. Or, at least, that happened to Spain in 2010: Iniesta's goal in the minute 116 revalued our brand in the market. People sounded more - in the first place, because the country is called the same as the national team - which influenced them when it came to choosing a destination for their vacations. But has it happened in other editions of the championship?

Spain is different

Nicolau and Sharma have focused on the daily benefits of the shares of tourism companies in the Stock Exchange, especially the hotel chains and airlines, from the Bloomberg database. Specifically, they analyzed the movements - the day of the final, the two days before and two after - registered in six French companies after winning their national team in 1998; four from Italy (2006); four from Spain (2010), and five from Germany, which won the victory in 2014. The Brazilian case could not be evaluated because, in 2002, no tourist company from that country was listed on the stock market.

The results do not admit of doubt: the quotes did not undergo an abnormal change -only a slight increase the same day of the event- that could be attributed to the party ... except, as we already knew, in 2010. And to what is the exception Spanish? The authors of the work ignore it, since the other countries studied - France and Italy, in particular - are also powerful tourist destinations. Nicolau and Sharma suggest expanding the research to the clubs and assessing the economic impact of their sporting triumphs in the regions where the cities they represent are located.