Willingness to Pay and Accept for Hosting Olympic Games in Germany

Bakkenbüll Linn-Brit, Dilger Alexander

Abstract

This empirical study investigates whether and how much individuals are willing to pay for hosting Olympic Games in Germany. Moreover, it is examined for the first time what individuals are willing to accept to host Olympic Games in their own country if they do not like that. Furthermore, this study identifies determinants that influence the willingness to pay (WTP) including the willingness to accept (WTA) for hosting Olympic Games in Germany. WTP minus WTA is positively driven by the felt national importance of the German Olympic team doing well. Socio-economic factors such as gender, age and income influence this measure in significant ways, too. The extrapolation of the individual WTP and WTA shows that, in the net aggregate, the German population is willing to pay €3.57 billion for hosting the Olympic Games in Germany.