Socio-psychological Factors Associated with the Public’s Willingness to Pay for Elite Sport Policy



Fig. 10.1
CVM and compensating surplus



The horizontal axis of Fig. 10.1 shows the level of elite sport success, and the vertical axis depicts personal income. The curve U 0 is a utility indifference curve: on this line all individuals get the same utility. The current level of athletic success is denoted as Q 0 , and individual income as M. Thus, the current status can be showed as point A. If it is assumed that elite sport success is improved to Q 1 , then in that case income will not change so the status will move to point B and the utility will grow due to the improved success. Basically, all individuals prefer B to A because of the higher utility. In this occasion, the maximum amount of money an individual will be willing to pay, even though he/she reduces their income level, will be described by line CS. This CS line is expressed as WTP, and it is the monetary value of elite sport success. In other words, it is the part of one’s income invested to enhance the level of current utility. If we replace Q 1 as a policy objective or goal, it can create the possibility of a policy evaluation based on cost-benefit analysis (Wicker et al. 2012b; Funahashi and Mano 2013).

Concerning the factors associated with the WTP for elite sport success, the necessity of a theoretical approach has been noted (Wicker et al. 2012a). Wicker et al. (2012a, b) used the theory of consumption capital (see Stingler and Becker 1977) and successfully explained what factors influence the WTP for elite sport success. However, these models included several limitations due to the relatively low explanatory value of the WTP, and more research is required in this area. Thus, the current study is predicated on the idea that another theoretical approach must be applied in order to better understand how to obtain the support of the public.



10.3 Theoretical Model


A theoretical model for the factors associated with the WTP for elite sport policy is presented in this chapter. This model is derived from public attitude research in many different study areas. Public attitude can be defined as the public acceptance or rejection of a policy and programme. Obviously, gaining public acceptance of a policy is considered important for the practical reason that adopted policy cannot be implemented effectively and efficiently without public consent (King et al. 1998). Therefore, determination of public attitude is an essential issue for implementing public policy (Chen et al. 2002).

Recently, governments have been directly intervening in elite sport policies. Their interventions are designed to improve the international competitiveness of their sport organisations and associations by providing financial assistance in the form of taxation or the profits from lotteries (Green and Houlihan 2005; Bloyce and Smith 2011). Therefore, since elite sport policy is a public funded service, policy makers should be held accountable for their use of public money and should make their use of this resource quite clear to the general public. Such is the case in Japan. The recent re-emergence of Japan as a strong sport nation on the international stage is the outcome of a refocusing on elite sport by the government (Yamamoto 2008). In a recent report from the responsible ministry, it was officially stated that it is essential for the government to secure stable revenue sources for elite sport with the understanding of the whole society (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan 2012).

Research intended to establish the determinants of public acceptance have been conducted in many areas where there is an interaction between technological advance and social acceptance. Examples of where this interaction has occurred include nuclear power plants, genetic modification, and organ transplant. A systematic review of research involving this interaction indicates that risk, trust, perceived benefit, knowledge, and individual differences are the top 5 utilized determinants that influence public acceptance in areas involving technological research (Gupta et al. 2012). In general, a person who perceives low risks from technological advance, has a high trust of the involved parties, perceives high benefits, and is knowledgable about the technological issue tends to be accept policies advancing or supporting the technology. Although elite sport has a totally different nature from the above interactions, it inherently has not only positive externality (e.g. national identity, social integration) but also negative externality (e.g. doping, physical abuse). These issues have been discussed in terms of sport economics (Bourg and Gouguet 2010; Downward et al. 2011), and thus one can say that there is a potential common ground between theories that evaluate public acceptance of elite sport and those that evaluate public acceptance of technological advance. The factors of the current model are ascribed to 6 socio-psychological variables: Social benefits, personal benefits, risks, trust, knowledge, and the athlete as a role model.

First, perceived social and personal benefits from elite sport success, namely the outcomes of the elite sport system, should be relevant to WTP. In the consensus building for public policy, in contrast to the decisions involved with private issues, not only the personal benefit which can be obtained through the implementation of the policy but also public benefits exist as a determining factors. Previous work has revealed that socially intangible factors such as the importance of success for the country (Wicker et al. 2012a) and importance of success for the prestige of the nation (Humphreys et al. 2011) are positively related to WTP for athletic success. Similarly, personal benefits, such as personal importance of success (Wicker et al. 2012a) and feelings of happiness and feeling proud from success (Wicker et al. 2012b). Hence, people who enjoy a variety of social and personal benefits from elite success will show a higher WTP.

Secondly, negative aspects associated with elite sport development should be negatively relevant to WTP. The agricultural economic literature holds that risk perception is a key determinant for the WTP (Pinto-Prades et al. 2008; Kimenju and Groote 2008). Also, some descriptive research has argued that this darker aspect of elite sport, mainly doping, ruins the image and value of sport (Kayser et al. 2007; Petróczi 2007) and leads to a negative public attitude (Uvacsek et al. 2011). Therefore, in line with these works, it is assumed that risk perception will have a negative effect on the value of elite sport policy.

Third, knowledge of the elite sport programme should be relevant to WTP. Just as for sport spectators, who show an increased positive attitude toward a sport when they are more familiar with the players and rules, studies utilizing the consumption capital theory (Stingler and Becker 1977) have revealed that a high level of consumption capital might be a driver of the value of success (Wicker et al. 2012a, b). Consequently, increased consumption of elite sport, namely familiarity with elite sport policy, might positively relate to utility from success. Therefore, people who have higher level of knowledge of elite sport programmes are assumed to exhibit a higher WTP.

Fourth, trust of the elite sport policy actors (ministries and organisations who participate in policy creation, implementation, and evaluation) should be relevant to WTP. In scientific technology policy and risk management in ecology, social trust is seen as a crucial issue (Cvetkovich and Löfstedt 1999; Johnson 1999). This is because the social trust has been considered to have a strong effect on perceived benefits and risks produced by a policy, and eventually determines the acceptance and rejection of a policy (Nakaya 2012). A study in agricultural economics reported that people who trusted the government were about 20 % more likely to pay (Kimenju and Groote 2008). Consequently, it is assumed that trust of elite sport actors will positively influence WTP.

Fifth, in conjunction with the trust of elite sport actors, elite athletes’ influence as role models should be relevant to WTP. This is because the elite athletes are the very people who are publicly supported, and peoples’ utility will change according to their performance or general behaviour. In fact, public perception of national elite athletes as role models in terms of fairness was positively associated with the value of Olympic success (Wicker et al. 2012b). Thus, people who regard the Japanese elite athlete as a role model are assumed to show a higher WTP.


10.4 Method



10.4.1 Participants and Procedures


The present study used a sample comprised of 1,050 male and female adults over 20 years of age. The survey utilized an internet-based cross-sectional survey, which was conducted via the Japanese Internet Research Service Company. This research service organization lists more than 1 million voluntary registered subjects across Japan as well as their detailed socio-demographic attributes. The company can access data from the targeted group on the basis of the study’s requirements. Potential respondents are randomly selected from the database and invited to participate in the survey via email. The email invitations include the URL for access to the survey. Potential respondents login using their own ID and password to answer the questionnaire voluntarily. From the potential respondents a group will be again be randomly selected to meet stratification requirements. In this study the respondents were stratified by gender and age (20–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, and ≥60 years) to be equivalent to those on the Population Census of Japan. To avoid sample selection bias (Carson 2000), the survey was named “Questionnaire about Life”. A total of 772 valid responses were obtained.


10.4.2 Measures


Willingness to pay. The dependent variable used to measure the public’s attitude toward elite sport success was the WTP. It was assessed by a hypothetical scenario using the CVM questionnaire of Funahashi and Mano (2013). The question used was: “Hypothetically, assume that the government collects a tax for elite sport development purposes for 10 years. This tax will be used for achieving the policy goal stated in the Sport Basic Plan, namely 5th in total number of gold medals for the Summer Olympics and 10th in the Winter Olympics. Would you be willing to pay [BID VALUE] JPY every year?” This question involved a double-bounded dichotomous choice which conforms to the recommendation of economic experts (Arrow et al. 1993). A dichotomous choice question was chosen because such questions are easier to answer and free from the strategic bias problem (Castellanos et al. 2011). In double bounded dichotomous choice questions, the respondent is presented with two consecutive bids. The second bid depends on the response to the first. If the respondent expresses a willingness to pay the first bid, the second bid is set higher, and if not, the second bid is set lower. The first bid’s value was established as 200, 500, 1,000, 2,000, and 5,000 JPY based on a preliminarily survey of 149 undergraduate students. The bids were distributed in five different stratified samples.

Socio-psychological factors. By utilizing public acceptance research from different fields (i.e. technology, nuclear energy) and elite sport literatures (Houlihan and Green 2008; Park et al. 2012; Volkwein 1995; Grix and Carmichael 2012), we established the following 6 constructs of socio-psychological independent variables: Perceived social benefits of elite sport success with 5 items (BENEFS), perceived personal benefits of elite sport success with 4 items (BENEFP), perceived risk associated with the elite sport development with 5 items (RISK), social trust of elite sport policy actors with 4 items (TRUST), level of knowledge of elite sport programme with 3 items (KNOW), and athletes role model scale with 5 items (ROLEM). In Table 10.1, the constructs and their items are mentioned, together with relevant reference materials. All items were measured on 7-point Likert scales; higher scores indicate higher values of the variables measured. The replies were transformed into a discrete score (from −1 for “highly negative”, 0 for “neutral” and 1 for “highly positive”). The scores were then averaged to form an index for each construction.


Table 10.1
Questionnaire items per socio-psychological scales and reference materials













































































































Variables
Items
References

Social Benefitsa

 BENEFS 1

Elite sport success stimulates economies
Identification of social benefits: discriptions from Grix and Carmichael (2012); Houlihan and Green (2008)

 BENEFS 2

Elite sport success demonstrates national pride internationally

 BENEFS 3

Elite sport success makes Japan be recognized by other countries

 BENEFS 4

Elite sport success improves image of Japan internationally

 BENEFS 5

Elite sport success increases sport participation rate

Personal Benefitsa

 BENEFP1

Elite sport success makes me feel pride
Identification of personal benefits: evidences and discriptions from Dozci (2012); Allison and Mornington (2002); Hallman et al. (2012); Castellanos et al. (2011); Kavetsos and Szymanski (2010)

 BENEFP2

Elite sport success makes me feel a feeling of happiness

 BENEFP3

Elite sport success makes me feel national identity

 BENEFP4

Elite sport success makes me feel local unity

Risksa

 RISK1

Promotion of elite sport policy inhibits the promotion of grass-roots sport
Identification of risk: original ideas of authors and discriptions from Park et al. (2012); Volkwein (1995)

 RISK2

Promotion of elite sport policy fuels overemphasis of success

 RISK3

Promotion of elite sport policy causes physical abuse and moral harassment

 RISK4

Promotion of elite sport policy causes educational problem of athletes

 RISK5

Promotion of elite sport policy causes unethical practices (doping, fix-game, etc.)

Trustb

 TRUST1

… in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)
Identification of actors: Discriptions from Yamamoto (2008)

 TRUST2

… in the Japan Sport Council (JSC)
Form of questions: Visschers et al. (2011); Siegrist (2000)

 TRUST3

… in the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC)

 TRUST4

… in the National Governing Bodies (NGBs)

Knowledgec

 KNOW1

… of the Japan Institute of Sports Science (JISS)
Identification of elite sport programme: Descriptions from MEXT (2012)

 KNOW2

… of the National Training Center (NTC)

 KNOW3

… of the Team ‘Nippon’ Multi Support Project

Athlete role modela

 ROLEM1

Japanese elite athlete leads by example
Role model scale of Rich (1997); Dix et al. (2010)

 ROLEM2

Japanese elite athlete provides a good model for me to follow

 ROLEM3

Japanese elite athlete sets a positive example for others to follow

 ROLEM4

Japanese elite athlete exhibits the kind of work ethic and behavior that I try to imitate

 ROLEM5

Japanese elite athlete acts as a role model for me


Note:

aSeven possible answers were given: ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’

bSeven possible answers were given: ‘no trust’ to ‘very high trust’

cSeven possible answers were given: ‘know nothing’ to ‘know a lot’

Demographic variables. The following demographic variables were obtained in order to describe the characteristics of the respondents: sex (SEX: 1 = male, 0 = female), age (AGE), marital status (MARRIED: 1 = married, 0 = others), employment status (JOB fulltime : 1 = full-time, 0 = others), educational status (EDU uni : 1 = 4 years university degree and more, 0 = others), household numbers (HOUSEN), and natural log of household income level (lnINC).


10.4.3 CVM Valuation Approach


The CVM was utilized in this study. The utility function approach proposed by Hanemann (1984), which is considered the most suitable method for double-bounded dichotomous choice estimation, was applied. The first bid was set as $$ {B}_i $$ and $$ {B}_i^u $$ represents the follow-up higher bid value, and $$ {B}_i^l $$ represents the follow-up lower bid value. The probability for a respondent to answer “Yes” for both offered bid questions equals the probability that his or her $$ WT{P}_i $$ is higher than the highest bid offer:


$$ {\pi}^{yy}\left({B}_i,{B}_i^u\right)= Prob\left\{{B}_i^u\le WT{P}_i\right\}=1-G\left({B}_i^u,\theta \right) $$

(10.1)

Similar to this, the likelihood if the respondent $$ i $$ answers “Yes” to $$ {B}_i $$ , but reject $$ {B}_i^u $$ means the $$ WT{P}_i $$ is between $$ {B}_i $$ and $$ {B}_i^u $$ :


$$ {\pi}^{yn}\left({B}_i,{B}_i^u\right)= Prob\left\{{B}_i\le WT{P}_i<{B}_i^u\right\}=G\left({B}_i^u,\theta \right)-G\left({B}_i,\theta \right) $$

(10.2)

The probability of a respondent answering “No” firstly but “Yes” to the following bid indicates that the $$ WT{P}_i $$ is between $$ {B}_i^l $$ and $$ {B}_i $$ :


$$ {p}^{ny}\left({B}_i,\;{B}_i^l\right)= Prob\left\{{B}_i^l\le WT{P}_i<{B}_i\right\}=G\left({B}_i,\;q\right)-G\left({B}_i^l,\;q\right) $$

(10.3)

Lastly, the probability of receiving two “No” answers is equivalent to the probability that the $$ WT{P}_i $$ is sitting below the lowest bid offered:


$$ {p}^{nn}\left({B}_i,\;{B}_i^l\right)= Prob\left\{WT{P}_i<{B}_i^l\right\}=G\left({B}_i^l,\;q\right) $$

(10.4)
$$ G\left(B,\theta \right) $$ denotes a cumulative distribution function and $$ \theta $$ a set of unknown parameters which are hypothesized to determine an individual’s response to a stated bid. The log likelihood function of N individuals parameterised by $$ \theta $$ using Eqs. (10.1) through (10.4) (Hanemann et al. 1991) is:


$$ \ln {L}^D(q)={\displaystyle \sum}_{i=1}^N\left\{\begin{array}{l}{d}_i^{yy} \ln {\pi}^{yy}\left({B}_i,\;{B}_i^u\right)+{d}_i^{yn} \ln \left({B}_i,\;{B}_i^u\right)+{d}_i^{ny} \ln {\pi}^{ny}\left({B}_i,\;{B}_i^l\right)\\ {}+{d}_i^{nn} \ln {\pi}^{nn}\left({B}_i,\;{B}_i^l\right)\end{array}\right\} $$

(10.5)
where $$ {d}_i^{yy} $$ is 1 if the ith response is yes to both initial bid and follow-up higher bid, and 0 otherwise. The same applies to $$ {d}_i^{yn},{d}_i^{ny},{d}_i^{nn} $$ . Under the assumption of a logistic distribution, the mean and median WTP were both estimated through a log-logit model.


10.4.4 Factors Influence WTP


The probability of a person $$ i $$ accept or reject a hypothetical bid level $$ B $$ for a double bounded model is expressed in a logistic form and can be described with social-psychological factors and demographics as:


$$ {p}^y(B)=1-G\left(B,\;q\right)=1-1/\left(1+{e}^{a+{b}_{bid}lnB+{\displaystyle \sum }{b}_k{S}_k+{\displaystyle \sum }{b}_n{D}_n}\right) $$

(10.6)
where $$ \theta \equiv \left(\alpha, \beta \right) $$ , $$ \alpha $$ is a constant, $$ {\beta}_B $$ is a parameter of $$ \ln B $$ , $$ {\beta}_k $$ is a parameter of socio-psychological characteristics of the individual represented as $$ {\mathrm{S}}_k $$ , and $$ {\beta}_n $$ is a parameter of demographic character of the individual represented as $$ {D}_n $$ . The above mentioned socio-psychological and demographics variables are included in the model. The proper log-likelihood function for the double-bounded model can be constructed in analogy to Eq. (10.5).


10.5 Results



10.5.1 Descriptive Analysis


The summary statistics from the survey are presented in Table 10.2. The majority of survey respondents were male (52.7 %), in their 50’s and over (47.5 %), and earned an annual household income of 4–8 million JPY (45.6 %). The average age was 47.5 years. Ages ranged from 20 to 83 years. About two-thirds were married (69.9 %). Slightly less than half had completed a 4 year university degree (44.9 %). About 47 % of the respondents worked full time.


Table 10.2
Samples’ characteristics

















































































Variables
Description
Sample
General Japanese
χ2 test
  

n
%
%

Gender
  
 
Male
407
52.7
48.4
5.769
*
 
Female
365
47.3
51.6

Age
  
 
20–29
104
13.5
15.9
8.592
*
 
30–39
149
19.3
19.0
 
40–49
152
19.7
16.3
 
50 and over
327
47.5
48.8

Average age
47.5
50.5
−5.992a

***

Marital status
 
Married
540

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Oct 16, 2016 | Posted by in SPORT MEDICINE | Comments Off on Socio-psychological Factors Associated with the Public’s Willingness to Pay for Elite Sport Policy

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