Fiscal Policy

In 2026, the FIFA Men's World Cup will be held across 16 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The tournament will use existing stadiums, but every host city has signed up to spend government money on the surrounding infrastructure. New rapid transit in Atlanta, a renovated terminal at Dallas Fort Worth. Estimates of total combined public spending across the three countries run between three and five billion US dollars. The economic argument for that spending is straightforward. Government dollars going into transit, security and stadium upgrades create jobs immediately. Each dollar the government spends is meant to generate more than a dollar in total economic activity because the contractor who receives the public money then spends it locally and so on. The economic argument against is that public money for stadium events almost never breaks, even on its narrow accounting basis.