The Contingent Valuation Method - University of West Florida Football

Valuing public goods is sometimes difficult due to the influences of hypothetical bias, and even a lack of historical pricing, but techniques have been established for estimating the value of these types of goods. Contingent Valuation and Willingness to Pay are the two biggest techniques for valuing public goods with Contingent Valuation being the biggest. The Contingent Valuation Method is used to estimate economic values for public goods and is used to estimate both use and non use values. For example, this method can be used by a university wishing to add a new varsity sports program to their athletic department, like a college football team. The Contingent Valuation Method can help determine if adding a football program is feasible, in terms of what the college football program is worth to a university, students, and other relevant stakeholders.

For instance, let's say the University of West Florida (UWF), which is located in Pensacola Florida, had a goal of adding a varsity football team to its athletic department and that UWF will allocate the costs to fund this football team for the next 10 years by adding $50 extra to all students when they register for the fall semester. Depending on the goals of UWF, this fee could disappear altogether within 10 years and simply be funded by general ticket sales, memorabilia sales revenue, and perhaps TV revenue, if the program is successful. Before the football program is actually established, the UWF athletic department needs to find out what the students actually think of this idea, mainly to see if adding a football program is worthwhile. This can best be completed by performing a survey to the UWF student body. Of course, hypothetical bias needs to be taken into account when performing these surveys. Significant difference between response to real and hypothetical valuation questions is often referred to as hypothetical bias. In other words, will the students really support paying this added fee if the football program is unsuccessful in terms of winning? Survey questions could be asked as follows:

How much would you be willing to pay in extra tuition costs to have a varsity football program for the 2012 academic year?

To ensure that this survey avoids respondents evoking hypothetical bias the survey should be done in person, with the following follow up questions:

Would you pay $50 extra for the extra benefit of having a varsity football program for the fall 2012 academic semester?

The respondents should be given all relevant information pertaining to the costs benefits of having this football program and the worst case scenarios associated with having this added program. Each student respondent should be asked this one last question:

Would you be willing to pay this extra fee without using any form of financial aid for each fall semester you are enrolled in classes at UWF?

This last question will help illustrate to the students that the student body is solely responsible for the football program, and is directly being paid for by the students. Thus, this question will help eliminate hypothetical bias from occurring in the student's responses.

News in Local and World Environmental Economics.

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Florida in 2012 Elections

This article presents a snapshot of voters, issues and trends in battleground state Florida that will influence who and what wins and loses in the 2012 elections.

How Florida Votes: Red State or Blue State?

Democratic presidential candidates have won in Florida only three times in 40 years: Barack Obama in 2008, Bill Clinton in 1996 and Jimmy Carter in 1976.

In 2008, Obama won 57% of Florida's Hispanic vote, compared to Democrat John Kerry winning only 44% in 2004. By 2010, the Sunshine State's growing population of Hispanics comprised 22.5% of Florida residents, the nation's 6th highest state Hispanic percentage.

The Miami Herald newspaper analyzed after the 2008 elections, "Polls indicate the state's Hispanic vote may now be divided. On one side are conservative older Cuban Americans, who vote reliably Republican. On the other are younger Cuban Americans coupled with an expanding number of non-Cuban Hispanics, who tend to lean Democratic."

In 2008, Democrat Obama also attracted the votes of 72% of Florida's 650,000 new voters, most of them young or members of non-white ethnic groups who had newly registered since the 2004 presidential election.

In the last four presidential elections, Florida voted as follows: 2008 - 51% for Democrat Obama, 48% for Republican McCain 2004 - 52% for Republican Bush, 47% for Democrat Kerry 2000 - 49% for Republican Bush, 49% for Democrat Gore 1996 - 48% for Democrat Clinton, 42% for Republican Dole, 10% for OtherIn 2011, Florida's governor, Rick Scott, and lieutenant governor, Jennifer Carroll, are both Republicans. Gov. Scott, a Tea Party-Libertarian Republican and former healthcare corporation CEO, was elected to office in November 2010 by a very narrow margin of 68,000 votes. A year later, Gov. Scott's statewide approval has plummeted to only 26%.

Floridians have elected one Democrat, Bill Nelson, and one Republican, Marco Rubio, to the U.S. Senate. Florida's delegation to the House of Representatives includes 19 Republicans and six Democrats.

Summary of Top Issues in Florida

Florida is currently experiencing the nation's 4th highest unemployment rate (10.6%) and 7th highest home foreclosure rate (1 in 372 homes). Thus, the economy, jobs creation, foreclosure relief, and depressed real estate values are paramount concerns in the Sunshine State.

Florida also boasts the highest state percentage of seniors in the nation, 17.3%, causing Social Security and Medicare to be foremost concerns, too. Republican presidential candidates have all pledged to slash both programs.

Hispanics comprise 22.5% of Florida's residents, per the 2010 census, the nation's 6th highest state Hispanic population percentage. Almost 19% of Floridians speak Spanish as their primary language.

Although Republican leaders oppose humanitarian immigration reforms and many push for an armed U.S.-Mexico border, the nation's Hispanic population is also deeply disappointed by President Obama's failure to actively support or enact reform of immigration laws.

Florida Economic Facts and Voter Demographics

Unemployment Rate as of June 2011 - 10.6%, the nation's 4th highest state unemployment rate.

Foreclosure Rates as of June 2011 - 1 in 372 homes, the nation's 7th highest state foreclosure rate for homes.

State Residents Living Below Poverty-Level Income - 13.2%, which is ranked #22 among states.

Labor Union Membership - In Florida, 601,000 workers, which is 7.9% of all employed Florida workers, belong to an organized labor union, the nation's 9th highest quantity of labor union members.

Senior Citizen Population - 17.3% of Florida's total population, the highest state percentage of seniors in the nation.

Women as a Percentage of Florida's Population - 51.1%, which is 16th in the nation, tied with Maine.

Hispanic Population - 22.5% of Florida residents are of Hispanic origin, the nation's 6th highest state Hispanic population percentage, and the highest outside the western United States.

African-American Population - 16% of Florida's resident population, the nation's 11th highest state African-American percentage, tied with Arkansas and New York.

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Florida Voting Laws

The Republican-led Florida legislature has implemented a number of controversial state voting law changes in anticipation of 2012 elections.

Florida, long regarded as a political battleground state, decided the 2000 presidential election results in favor of Republican George W. Bush. In 2008, Florida voters were crucial to presidential elections results when Democrat Obama narrowly defeated Republican McCain in the Sunshine State. (See Why Red States Turned Blue in 2008 - Florida.)

Other states with major voting law changes in 2011 include Wisconsin, Ohio, Kansas and Texas.

Florida Voting Law Changes in 2011
Cutting Early Voting - The Florida legislature cut early voting from 14 days to 7 days before the election, despite wide-spread popularity for it among Florida voters.

"In the 2008 presidential election, about a third of those who cast ballots did so in early voting... Post-election analysis showed that early voters were particularly important to Democrats, helping presidential candidate Barack Obama carry the state," per NPR.

Restricting Voter Registration Drives - The Florida legislature moved to restrict voter registration drives by chopping the number of days, from ten to two, between the time a voter registers and that registration is submitted to the appropriate County Registrar's office.

Per The Miami Herald, "It's one of several changes in the law that critics say are designed to suppress voting by minorities, young people and the elderly, voter groups that traditionally lean Democratic. The law's sponsors say the revisions are needed to prevent voting fraud."

"In 2008, 2.13 million voters registered in Florida and, very conservatively, at least 8.24 percent or 176,000 of them did so through drives," per the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

In Florida, public high school teachers have commonly held voter registration drives for their students. Many Florida teachers believe this new law discourages registration of young voters, most who lean Democratic.

For example, government teacher Dawn Quarles of Pace High School in the Florida panhandle, "said 48 hours isn't enough time to get the forms mailed to the Santa Rosa County elections supervisor's office in nearby Milton," per The Miami Herald.

Failure to Restore Rights to Disenfranchised Voters In 2011, Florida has "made it substantially more difficult or impossible for people with past felony convictions to get their voting rights restored" in time for the November 2012 elections, per per the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Continues the Brennan Center, "Up to one million people in Florida could have benefited from the prior practice; based on the rates of restoration in Florida under the prior policy, 100,000 citizens likely would have gotten their rights restored by 2012."

Effort to Limit Voter Turnout?
On November 3, 2011, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, a Democrat, requested that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder investigate to determine if new state voting laws "resulted from collusion or an orchestrated effort to limit voter turnout." Wrote Sen. Nelson to Attorney General Holder:

"I have just written a letter to U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois who chairs the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights. I have asked Sen. Durbin’s subcommittee to conduct a congressional investigation to see if Florida’s new election law is linked to the efforts to pass similar voting restrictions in 14 states so far this year.

"The changes mostly involve new ID requirements, shorter early voting periods and new restrictions on third parties who sign up new voters. In Florida, the League of Women Voters considered these restrictions so egregious it abandoned its registration drives after 72 years, and teachers there are running afoul of the law for the way they sign up students to vote... "

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