Medals in Transition

Abstract

In this paper we study the determinants of provincial medal shares and of their dispersion for all the China National Games (from the 1950s to 2001), paying particular attention to change in behavior during the plan regime and the market regime. We find that provincial medal shares converged in the plan regime, and then diverged in the market regime. As in the Olympic medal literature, population and average income play fundamental roles in explaining medal shares. A novel finding is that the marginal productivities of both human and especially financial resources in raising medal shares are significantly higher in the market regime than in the plan regime. Moreover, the share of educated people is positively associated with medal share in the plan regime but not so in the market regime. The SOE share is positively related to medal share when it has ample variations, consistent with the literature on the Olympic Games that central planning economies appear to win more medals. Finally, rising urban-rural income disparity contributed to the divergence of medal shares for the last few National Games.