Argentina is better placed than France to reap the economic benefit that typically comes from winning the World Cup, according to an academic who’s studied the historical record. Football’s world champion tends to enjoy an extra 0.25 percentage point of economic growth in the two quarters following the tournament, according to a recent paper by Marco Mello at the University of Surrey in the UK. That’s mainly the result of a rise in exports because the winner enjoys greater international visibility, Mello said in an interview. His research showed an outsized jump in Brazil’s foreign sales after it won the 2002 World ... (full story)