Economic Impact of the London 2012 Olympics

On 6 July 2005 the International Olympic Committee awarded the right to stage the 2012 summer Olympic and Paralympic Games to London. The decision to bid for the Games is a politically contentious one, with many arguments that support the benefits that such “mega events” bring and many arguments that highlight the detrimental effects that they can incur. This political decision is further complicated by the existence of groups in society that benefit from the hosting of such events and other groups that lose out because of them; and because of pressure groups that exist on both sides of this argument. This paper examines the economic benefits and costs of hosting the Olympics, in parallel with other studies that have estimated other social and environmental costs and benefits. The objective is to use the most appropriate form of methodology to examine the net economic consequences of hosting the Games for both the UK as a whole and for London. The net benefits are found to be positive, and large relative to the investment in the bidding process, although smaller than previous studies that have tended to examine gross effect