Days after the end of the Beijing Olympics, contentions still remain high about what kind of effects the Games will have on the Chinese economy. In fact, a sports event, in whatever scale, cannot have as much influence on the economy of a country of China's size as people expect.

In the history of Olympics, many host countries once encountered economic bubbles produced by the so-called post-Olympic effect and suffered prolonged economic sluggishness. Such a phenomenon is attributed to their high-level investment prior to the Olympics and a dramatic investment decrease after the Games ended.

With the conclusion of the Olympics, the chances for employment expansion and development of related sectors as the result of enlarged investment in these host countries also came to an end. Consequently, quite a number of people had to find new jobs, aggravating employment pressure. If there were still some new investment projects that could continue to boost economic development, the post-Olympic effect would not emerge in these countries. Otherwise, the steep fall in investment, accompanied by increased employment pressure, would plunge them into a long period of economic slowdown.