Economics Observatory Contributions
These are a selection of some of my favorite visualizations I have created for the Economics Observatory. I've made minor style adjustments so they match the rest of the site. Thanks to the team for their support and guidance.
The 2024 US Election
The US Democratic Party is the latest in a series of incumbent parties to lose vote share in 2024. Backlash against inflation may be driving these sweeping changes. This chart shows eight national elections held in high-income OECD countries. In every case, the incumbent party experienced a decline in vote share compared to the previous election.
Cherry Blossoms and Climate Change
Kyoto’s world-famous cherry blossom trees are blooming earlier and earlier every year. The timing of peak blossom depends on spring temperatures, which are rising. Note the sharp drop in the 20th century.
Medal Compensation at the 2024 Paris Olympics
The following is a section of an article I co-authored on the 2024 Paris Olympics. The full article can be found here.
The Olympics can be highly lucrative for some athletes, but not for all. The IOC maintains an official policy of amateur competition, so it does not reward medallists or pay athletes to compete. With no universal compensation regime, athletes’ earnings depend on their sport, their performance, corporate sponsorship and, most importantly, their country. While the Olympics as a whole is governed by the IOC, each sport is governed by its own international federation, which has autonomy over their IOC-allocated funds. This year, two broke with the IOC’s amateur athletics tradition. World Athletics – the governing body for track and field – elected to reward gold medallists, paying $50,000 (around £39,400). The International Boxing Association announced that it would reward medallists and their coaches: for gold, $100,000 for the boxer and $25,000 for the coach, $50,000 and $25,000 respectively for silver, and $12,500 apiece for bronze. Several National Olympic Committees (NOCs) also have medal compensation policies. At the Paris games, Hong Kong had the most generous scheme, paying its gold medallists HK$6,000,000 (around £590,000). Singapore and Taiwan are among the other nations that offer financial incentives to their athletes.
Not every NOC compensates their medallists this generously or at all. Indeed, of the ten largest teams, only Italy and Spain compensate gold medallists more than $100,000 (around £76,700).