Voternomics

48: Why Do Sports Make Sane People Lose Their (Economic) Minds?

Police strikes, threats of Zika and a $20 billion tab: Welcome to the 2016 Summer Olympics games in Brazil. But Rio's position isn't just matter of bad luck. It was actually self-imposed. Every four years countries vie to be the next host of the summer Olympics, despite cautionary tales of unnecessary stadium spending from places like Montreal and Athens. What is it about sports that make otherwise rational politicians make irrational decisions? To help answer that question, Dan and Kate are joined this week by Neil deMause, an expert in the world of publicly financed sports facilities.See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.

This famously is the year of elections. So the Stephanomics feed has been taken over by our bonus series, Voternomics. It’s a weekly look at the way geopolitics - and elections - are upending the longstanding assumptions of policymakers and business people around the world. Hosted by Stephanie Flanders, head of Bloomberg Economics and former  BBC economics editor, former government advisor Allegra Stratton and Opinion columnist and author Adrian Wooldridge.