The Olympics costs cities far more to host than it returns in revenue. Supposedly, the aura of the Games will make up for the shortfall, magically transforming any metropolis into a tourist magnet. Try telling that to the people of Montreal, which spent big on the 1976 Games and paid for it for next 30 years. In fact, that’s been the experience of most hosts over the last four decades.

In a post at The Conversation, Andrew Zimbalist, the Smith economist who’s long proven the financial folly of American cities building publicly funded stadiums for pro-sports teams, explains why authoritarian countries currently have a great shot at attracting the five-ring circus:

“The games’ promoters, however, claim the real payoff comes in increased tourism, foreign investment and trade. As my own research confirms, the difficulty with this assertion is that there is little evidence to back it up. London and Beijing, for instance, each experienced a drop in tourism when they hosted the summer games. That is, the increase in tourism for the Olympics was more than offset by a decrease in normal tourism, as people decided to stay away from the crowds and high prices. To be sure, the large majority of scholarly studies concludes that there is no positive economic impact from hosting.

There is growing evidence that the IOC has overplayed its hand. The number of bidders for the Winter Olympics has gone steadily down from nine in 1995 for the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City to just two in 2014 for the 2022 Games, and for the summer Olympics from 12 in 1997 for the 2004 games in Athens to three in 2013 for the 2020 games in Tokyo.

Potential bids for the 2022 Winter Olympics from Krakow, Stockholm, Munich, Davos, Lviv and Oslo were withdrawn in 2013 and 2014. This leaves only two authoritarian countries, Kazakhstan and China, in the hosting competition. Many analysts have concluded that democratic governments can no longer get away with wasting billions of dollars on dubious Olympic glory.”