Anyone who wants to calculate the impact of the Olympics on B.C. had better acquire some halo-measuring mojo, two bank economists said Monday.
The Winter Games should give the provincial economy a modest, short-term boost, nurturing a recovery that is already well under way, Bank of Montreal economists Doug Porter and Robert Kavcic said in a written commentary.
Historically, the Olympics have delivered a small positive benefit in employment and retail sales to the host province, the two said.
Their observations are based on a study of the Calgary Games in 1988 and the Montreal Olympics of 1976.
B.C., which was smacked as hard as any other province by the recession a year ago, has now rebounded as robustly as any other region, the economists said.
B.C., whose jobless rate dipped 0.2 percentage points to 8.1 per cent in January, already appears to have seen its job market turn the corner — although there could be a small post-Games employment retreat, they said.
"Perhaps the more significant impact of the Games on the B.C. economy will be the long-term positives from the upgraded infrastructure and from any halo effect of what will essentially be a global 17-day advertisement for the region," Porter and Kavcic said.
"That is nearly impossible to quantify."
In a separate report released Monday, HSBC senior equity specialist Douglas Rowat looked at 12 recent Olympics and found that the stock markets of host countries typically rally strongly in the 12 months after the closing ceremonies.
The average gain in the year after an Olympics is 14.8 per cent, he said.
As well, a negative or positive stock-market performance in a host country during the two weeks of a Games will reflect that market's performance during the next 12 months 83 per cent of the time, Rowat said.
"If you believe in spurious correlations, pay attention to what the Canadian market does during the Vancouver Games," he said.
"It could have bearing on how we do for the rest of the year."
© Copyright (c) The Province