Assistant Professor of Economics Victor Matheson has a nice article on how much hosting the Final Four portion of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament benefits (actually, fails to benefit) the host city.

But can these numbers be trusted? Independent economists studying sporting events uniformly find that booster estimates routinely overstate the effect of these games on local economies.

Matheson makes all the correct arguments on this point, although he fails to cite Bastiat on the fallacy of the broken window while doing so. Of course, that might not be the best rhetorical tactic given his expected audience.

Unless things have changed much in the last 20 years, ECON 101 at Williams features too few classic essays, like those by Bastiat, that will still be read 50 years from now, and too much expensive textbook fluff. But that is a rant for another day.