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.

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.

德国经济学家为不断传来的欧债危机坏消息疲倦不已。今年欧洲杯开赛后，他们把自己的经济技巧应用于更加有趣的工作：预测欧洲杯冠军。

他们半开玩笑地使用多种经济模型进行预测，这些经济模型通常用于债券市场或信用违约掉期等复杂问题。多数经济学家经过预测得出结论称，西班牙队和德国队是夺冠热门。

经济学家分析了过去四届欧洲杯的赛事结果，并将其输入到一个复杂的数学模型里，从而得出预测结果称，“和西班牙、荷兰一样，德国队是夺冠热门。”

在题目为“足球经济学”的研究记录中，荷兰银行的研究人员说，他们的研究工作是以“半严肃的方式”进行的。

他们补充说：“因为不管怎么说，足球还是很重要的。我们现在当然需要一些轻松的场面。欧洲，特别是欧元区，已经被危机困扰两年了。”

荷兰银行反复核对了一个国家足球队的比赛成绩和该国的信用等级，得出结论称，在7月1日的欧洲杯决赛中，德国队将获得冠军。

但对整个欧元区来说，研究记录称：“从经济的角度看，最好的结果是法国队夺冠”，因为法国被视作欧元区最不稳定的“核心”国家之一，而夺冠将大幅提振民众信心。

联合信贷银行的经济学家也大干了一番，把宏观经济数据输入复杂的数学模型，以期预测夺冠球队。

他们根据球员的转会身价，计算出了每支球队的总价值，认为最终的两场半决赛将在“真正的一流球队”之间展开，传统的对手球队将会狭路相逢。

最终的预测结果为，葡萄牙队（价值3.38亿欧元）对阵西班牙队（6.58亿欧元），德国队（4.59亿欧元）对阵英格兰队（3.92亿欧元）。