CONVERGENCE AND SOCCER:
FEATURES
T esting
Convergence and Soccer
A
ccording to the convergence hypothesis,
the growth of a nation’s GDP should be
negatively correlated with its historical level
of GDP; low income nations should be
growing faster than high income nations, and
the variance of national incomes should fall over time. In
recent years, there has been considerable debate about
whether we do in fact observe convergence in GDP, and
results are mixed. This paper examines a variant of the
convergence debate by examining convergence in national
team soccer results. Soccer is the most popular sport in
world, and almost every nation on the planet has a national
team that regularly plays in international competition.
This paper examines the results of national soccer teams
between 1950 and 2010 and finds that, whether measured
by the percentage of games won or by goal difference
(goals scored minus goals conceded), there is significant
evidence of convergence. This paper then speculates
about why it might be so much easier to find evidence of
convergence in national team soccer results than for GDP.
Photo Courtesy Reuters
STEFAN SZYMANSKI is one of the world’s
leading and most influential sports economists. Between 2008-2012 he was a Professor
of Economics at the Cass Business School of
the CIty University of London. Currently, he
serves as a Co-Director of the Michigan Centre for Sport Management at the University of
Michigan.
The Convergence Debate
The convergence hypothesis is a straightforward
consequence of neoclassical growth theory. The essential insight of economic growth theory is that increasing
output (measured by GDP) requires more capital (equipment, machinery, infrastructure). The productivity of each
worker increases when they have more capital to use, but
this process cannot continue without limit. Adding more
capital raises productivity, but at an ever decreasing rate (in
the jargon of economics, the marginal product of capital
Summer 2014 • H A R V A R D I N T E R N A T I O N A L R E V I E W
41
C onvergence
STEFAN SZYMANSKI
for
Testing for Convergence