正在加载文件，请稍候......

美国人一经济学家自创奥运奖牌公式,其中融合了各国经济等因素.值得一提的是他们更注重奖牌数量,而我们只关注第一名--金牌得主.

With the Games kicking off in Beijing tonight, athletes from around the world will face up. But which nation will take home the most gold? Andrew Bernard is a professor of International Economics at the Top School of Business and he's come up with a somewhat unusual method for predicting Olympic success, Professor Bernard, good morning, (good morning), (great to have you here.)

Good morning.

So, so you're not a, an athlete, you're not a, a sports writer, you're not a television analyst, you're you're an economist, so what does economics have to do with with winning at the Olympics?

Well, it all turns out that if all you care about is how many medals a country will win, economics can tell what you need to know, and you don't need to know whether Michael Phelps is a good swimmer or not, (Why?) (Hmm.) Because er Olympic athletes are like finely tune complicated machines (Hmm.) um and we know how to build those, you need good inputs, you need resources to put them together and then you need to maintain them and that's pretty much what you need to do to the Olympic athletes.

What got you into this er the whole thing about making predictions and using economics to, to predict?

Well, this came up at a lunchtime conversation after the Atlanta Games, the US have won the most medals but there was a lot of hindering it about how we didn't win enough medals, we didn't win as many medals as we should have and I started to think, well, how many medals we supposed to win, we can't win them all, we only send one men soccer team, one women soccer team, we only get the one medal there.

So it's just a statistics thing, you started using probability you know all of that? (It's a basic formula) (Oh,not so basic, right?) What's your formula?

Yeah, it's a formula, well, pretty simple, I mean. (OK.) Er, it's the four things that go into it. Income per capita of the country, population of the country. (Particularly you look what it looks like…yeah, that looks very simple, very simple, very simple…) (So you look at it, it's pretty simple…yeah, oh, gosh… it's all four year all could get it…) I figured it out already. …US is taking home the most medals, as what that's said for me, in China, is that Chinese? (That's what that says.)

Haha, no, that will be Greek, 'cause, Olympics agree. (It's great.)

Let' get to your predictions, a lot of people, especially a lot of mainland online bloggers, you know, say China with the home field advantages gonna win the most medals, you say no?

I say no, I say the US will continue to come on top of the total medal count, and and the country that everyone's forgetting ,Russia is gonna come in second, and Russia is a huge Olympic power, and China is gonna win a lot of more than last time, but come in third in the total medal count.

So 105 , they're 92 and then China and that's the host country effect, you say.

Host country effect and income, their income's growing rapidly, and income per capita is a really big important factor.

But you say China will probably walk away with the most gold medals?

Yeah, it's essentially a tie between US and China; it's 37 for China, 36 for the US, China wins a lot of more gold medals, per medal than other countries, they tend to specialize in gold for some reasons.

How do you factor and then 删掉 an athlete like Michael Phelps who is predicted or at least people are hoping or expecting that he has a chance that winning 8 medals, 8 gold medals for the United States.

Well, he's a problem for sports alstraighted that that predicts things by sports, but he's not a problem for me, because I, if he gets injured, and he can't win any medals, then we're gonna win them in any better. (Let's hope that's not the case.)

Yeah, it's in if, uh then we will win them I guess Taekwondo, table tennis, fencing, places we didn't expect to win them.

Now how long have you been doing this?

Um, I did it first for the Sydney Games, (yeah) and then I did it again for the Atlanta Games as well.

And 96% accuracy (across country) rate as far as I understand. (That's right.)

So if I am a, if I'm the head of a country's Olympic, er, er, Committee, what do I need to do to, to boost my medal count?

Well, there's not of a lot you can do, first of all, if I'm consulting at, have you pay me before I told you the Olympic Games. (Haha, and that's why you're an economic professor.)

But, the… (Here's the formula though, if you figure it out, you have the code, you have the formula…) you are right, yeah, you guys can have the formula.

The only thing you can do is go back to a Soviet style er athletic air aquatics 'cause in those days that those countries won er, a higher share.

Professor Bernard. Thank you so much. (Very interesting...)

My pleasure.

And you can catch the Opening Ceremony tonight at 7:30, 6:30 central right here on NBC…