Costs and Benefits of Hosting the Olympic Games

There is much debate going on whether it is actually beneficial for a city to host the games. On one side there are all the promises made by politicians regarding the revenue generated for local companies, the flows of tourists who spend large sums of money and the improved image of the city, on the other side one might think that the legacy of the games is underutilized stadium and heavily indebted local authorities. This article looks at some of the costs and benefits, and call attention on some of the common mistakes made when evaluating the effects of the games.

Loss Analysis: How Much is Haiti Losing?

The Haiti earthquake reminds most of us of images of entire quarters of a city destroyed, only heaps of concrete and dust left behind, and most importantly: enough humans dead to populate a Providence-sized city. Not only is this one of the greatest tragedies of recent years, but it hit a country that has suffered numerous other natural disasters as well as political instability and military coups. In a nation where 50% would be a modest estimation of unemployment and which struggles to finance its debt obligations, events like the earthquake are more painful than anywhere else. This article focuses on a more objective aspect of the natural disaster, the economic losses suffered by Haiti, attempting to give a rough estimation of the economic effects. In this article, I will suggest some possible ways to do so based on the data we have about the loss of infrastructure and lives.