I’m a sports fanatic, and when I followed the remarkable Olympic Games in Paris last year, that part of me felt nothing but joy. The economist in me, however, couldn’t help but wonder whether splurging on a spectacular Olympic experience is truly sustainable. Maybe it’s a leading indicator, or just a coincidence, but over the past twenty years, European hosts of the Olympics have consistently ended up with financial troubles: Greece, the UK, and now France. French politics has now taken centre stage. Normally, when you think of unstable and fragmented politics, you think of Italy, which had six prime ministers in the ... (full story)