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The Determinants of International Football Success: A Panel Data Analysis of the Elo Rating *
Author(s) -
Gásquez Roberto,
Royuela Vicente
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
social science quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.482
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1540-6237
pISSN - 0038-4941
DOI - 10.1111/ssqu.12262
Subject(s) - football , panel data , ranking (information retrieval) , rating system , demographics , econometrics , american football , estimator , economics , political science , computer science , sociology , statistics , mathematics , demography , environmental economics , artificial intelligence , law
Objectives This article investigates the determinants of football 1 success at the international level. We introduce three innovations as (a) we apply the model developed by Bernard and Busse (2004) to football, (b) we consider a wide panel of countries over a 33‐year period, and (c) we supplement FIFA's classification with the Elo rating system. Methods We estimate a dynamic panel model using Blundell and Bond's (1998) system‐generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator. Results The results are robust to several sensitivity analyses, showing that economics, demographics, weather, geography, and football institutions are good indicators of football success at the international level. Besides, the Elo rating is a better alternative indicator than the FIFA ranking. Conclusions The Elo rating may be used in the academic works that wish to analyze football success over a long period of time.