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This paper explores the decision to participate in sports activities in the United Kingdom and the subsequent frequency of participation. The paper draws links between economic and other theories of social interaction to motivate the discussion and links these theories to assessing policy initiatives in the United Kingdom. Cluster analysis is combined with a Heckman analysis to examine the empirical evidence provided by the General Household Survey in 2002. The results suggest that social and personal capital are of paramount importance in determining sports participation, and consequently, it is these features that policy should focus upon. However, the legitimacy of policy activism requires philosophical justification. (JEL B41, C2, D11, D12)
ABBREVIATION
GHS: General Household Survey
I. INTRODUCTION
The promotion of mass participation in sport, as a form of physical activity, is now firmly on the public policy agenda in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.1 The health and well-being of citizens form part of popular discourse, evidenced by repeated references to "obesity" epidemics in the media and indicated by the establishment of new policies, policy agents, or a refocusing of previous efforts to address this issue. For example, in the United Kingdom, a new central government Minister for Public Health has been established to work in partnership with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department for Transport, the Department for Education and Skills, and sports delivery bodies to raise participation. This is indicative of a more general pattern in most economies though tensions in policy priorities exist (see, e.g., Downward et al., forthcoming; Green and Houlihan, 2005; Houlihan, 1997).
The purpose of this paper is to assess such policy initiatives by an explicit focus upon economic theory and subsequent empirical investigation. In the next section, a brief resume of the policy context in the United Kingdom is provided. Section III then reviews the main elements of the theoretical and empirical literature on sports participation. It is shown, using an elementary model based on Becker (1974), how investment in personal consumption capital and social capital, through social interactions, can conceptually account for lifestyle and complementary consumption in sports.
Section IV then presents details of the data and variables used in the analysis. Sections V and VI...