Analysis of the Boston 2024 Proposed Summer Olympic Plans

Brattle economists prepared a report for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of the Governor of Massachusetts, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House evaluating Boston’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. Dr. Seth co-authored the report and led the Brattle team. The report detailed the components of the bid, tested its assumptions to examine potential risks, evaluated who would have borne the responsibility if any adverse risks had been realized, and estimated the potential economic impacts of the Olympic Games on the Commonwealth. Using input-output modeling, the report estimated that pre-Olympic Games expenditures would have generated approximately 29,250 job-years and $5.67 billion of output over the six years leading up to the Olympic Games; and during-Olympic Games expenditures would have generated approximately 30,300 job-years and $4.63 billion of output during the year of the Olympic Games. To put these figures into perspective, the number of jobs would have been less than 1% of Massachusetts residents employed as of June 2015, and the contribution of the Olympic Games to Commonwealth GDP would also have been less than 1%.