歐洲盃成“歐債杯” 金融家預測奪冠球隊
Tired of the constant barrage of depressing headlines from the eurozone debt crisis, German economists have turned their skills to the rather more fun task of forecasting the European Championships.
Using a variety of tongue-in-cheek models usually applied to complex questions of bond markets or credit default swaps, most analysts have ended up with far from earth-shattering tips, backing favourites Spain or Germany.
The good news for people concerned for the future of the euro area is that the chances of a team from the 17-nation zone lifting Europe's premier football trophy is a whopping 86 percent, according to economists at DekaBank.
Analysing the results of the past four European Championships and feeding it into a complex mathematical model, the economists came up with the prediction: "Along with Spain and the Netherlands, Germany is one of the favourites."
In a research note entitled "Soccernomics", boffins at ABN Amro said their work was done with a "quasi-serious approach."
"Because after all, football is the most important of all unimportant things. We certainly need some light relief these days. Europe -- in particular the eurozone -- has been engulfed in a crisis for two years now," they added.
ABN Amro cross-checked a country's footballing record with its credit rating and concluded that Germany would be triumphant come the final of Europe's top footballing competition on July 1.
For the eurozone as a whole, however, the research note concludes: "From an economic perspective, the best outcome would be a French victory" as it would boost confidence in one of the shakiest "core" eurozone nations.
Economists at UniCredit really went to town, feeding in macroeconomic data to complex mathematical models in a bid to predict the winner.
They calculated the worth of each individual team based on the transfer market value of their players and decided that the two semi-finals would be "genuine classics" pitting traditional rivals against each other.
"Portugal (338 million euros) against Spain (658 million euros) and Germany (459 million euros) against England (392 million euros)" was the final prediction.德國經濟學家爲不斷傳來的歐債危機壞消息疲倦不已。今年歐洲杯開賽後，他們把自己的經濟技巧應用於更加有趣的工作：預測歐洲盃冠軍。
他們半開玩笑地使用多種經濟模型進行預測，這些經濟模型通常用於債券市場或信用違約掉期等複雜問題。多數經濟學家經過預測得出結論稱，西班牙隊和德國隊是奪冠熱門。
德國德卡銀行經濟學家預測稱，冠軍來自於17個歐元區國家的可能性高達86%。這對於關心歐元區的人們來說是個好消息。
經濟學家分析了過去四屆歐洲盃的賽事結果，並將其輸入到一個複雜的數學模型裏，從而得出預測結果稱，“和西班牙、荷蘭一樣，德國隊是奪冠熱門。”
在題目爲“足球經濟學”的研究記錄中，荷蘭銀行的研究人員說，他們的研究工作是以“半嚴肅的方式”進行的。
他們補充說：“因爲不管怎麼說，足球還是很重要的。我們現在當然需要一些輕鬆的場面。歐洲，特別是歐元區，已經被危機困擾兩年了。”
荷蘭銀行反覆覈對了一個國家足球隊的比賽成績和該國的信用等級，得出結論稱，在7月1日的歐洲盃決賽中，德國隊將獲得冠軍。
但對整個歐元區來說，研究記錄稱：“從經濟的角度看，最好的結果是法國隊奪冠”，因爲法國被視作歐元區最不穩定的“核心”國家之一，而奪冠將大幅提振民衆信心。
聯合信貸銀行的經濟學家也大幹了一番，把宏觀經濟數據輸入複雜的數學模型，以期預測奪冠球隊。
他們根據球員的轉會身價，計算出了每支球隊的總價值，認爲最終的兩場半決賽將在“真正的一流球隊”之間展開，傳統的對手球隊將會狹路相逢。
最終的預測結果爲，葡萄牙隊（價值3.38億歐元）對陣西班牙隊（6.58億歐元），德國隊（4.59億歐元）對陣英格蘭隊（3.92億歐元）。
