Journal 6

Journal 6

                                     Post-Olympic Slump

I never heard about 'Valley effect', called as 'Post-Olympic Slump', 'Post-Olympic Economic Hangover', 'Post-Olympic Economic Depression', or 'v-low effect'. So when I heard about that effect in the presentation of this week, I was really surprised and wondered. When I think about 'Olympic' I simply thought that a host-country would be more famous and successful in their economy because the nation could get hundreds of direct & indirect effects like foreigners' (visitors') consumption, new job opportunities, improved nation-image (fame), etc., but I didn't consider about negative effects like debt, destruction of forest (forest protection area), valley effect, etc. So, I had many questions. 'Why does the valley effect happen? Why does the economic effect freeze after the hosting year except LA's Olympic? And I started to search many cases, and tried to find out why this effect happen in most countries who were hosts of Oympic.

The host country builds stadia, infrastructures like roads, accommondations, environmental cleanup, ect. for the succecssful Olympic-opening, and these support booming economy. But after the Olympic, the economy directly goes down because of the reduction of these investments. Olympic is usually famous for giving hundreds of economic benefits to the host country, but inflation, slowdown of economic growth, a dramastic plunge in asset, burden of public finance, etc, called as valley effect, actually happen.

For example, Beijing, the cipital city of China, invested huge money, about 23,000,000,000 dollars, which is seven times than Sidney and thirty-two times than LA. China put 17,000,000,000 dollars for reducing air-pollution, and the nation stoped operating 267 factories near Beijing. Chinese national statistic bureau was sure that the Olympic would cause economic benefits of 30,000,000,000 dollars, new job-opportunities of 30,000,000,000,000, advancement of economic structure, etc.

Montreal has also had this kind of case in 1976, and people in Montreal had paid  to pay back the debt due to Olympic by paying tax for thirty years. Canada had also paid back the debt  until 2007. Like other host nations, investment and consumption in Canada became lower, and maintenence and administration fee for sports-facilities became higher after the year of Olympic.

Chinese people did their best to acquire the Olympic opening. And the eighty percent of England people also did that despite the fact that they should pay more tax for London Olympic in 2012. Some people say that 'Never judge from appearance'. If so, why do most nations try to win in the competition despite the negative effects?

The Olympic host gets enourmous benefits, estimated about  5,000,000,000 dollars, especially in summer.  Construction of additional facilities, stadiums, roads, induction of employment, increased tourism revenue are direct and short-term effects. Invisible effects like   improvement of the host nation' public image, experience of holding big events, and Olympic marketing of businesses are long-term effects and couldn't be counted.  

I could learn various and useful things from the presentation and searching articles in person. I could know why the valley effect happens, and why most countries want to be the host country although there are also negative effects in opening Olympic. I enjoyed studying about this subject, so thank you for your interesting presentation, and thank you for your reading.