Conventional Growth: The Economic Impact of Presidential Nominating Conventions on Host Cities

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between cities hosting Presidential Nominating Conventions and economic growth, measured by city GDP, employment rate and tourism through an event study. Additionally, this paper looks at the impact of key convention-related infrastructure investments and the size of the host city to see if either of these factors affected the host city’s post-convention long-term GDP. Previous research on the subject was limited, and failed to find any meaningful correlation between hosting a convention and economic growth, while related research on short-term events and economic growth has resulted in a wide spectrum of results. Compared to their own pre-convention trends and relative to large host cities, the data revealed that small host cities showed significant increases in both short and long-run GDP. However, there is no significant general trend in GDP, employment or tourism for host cities, relative to both pre-convention trends and would-be host cities, and there is no indication that the key infrastructure investment led to long term growth, although it led to a small, non-statistically significant, short term boost.