Do local public expenditures on sports facilities affect sports participation in Germany?

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effect of local public expenditures on sports facilities on sports participation in Germany. To this end, we construct a new database containing public expenditures at the municipality level and link this information with individual level data. We form locally weighted averages of expenditures based on geographic distances since people also benefit from expenditures of neighboring municipalities. We analyze how effects of sports facility expenditures change with different expenditures levels (“dose-response relationship”) and find no effect of local public expenditures on sports facilities on the probability to practice sports. These findings are robust across different age groups and municipality sizes.