TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE HETEROGENEITY OF PREFERENCES IN THE CHOICE EXPERIMENT METHOD: APPLICATION TO A NON-TOURIST PUBLIC CULTURAL GOOD

As noted by W. J. Baumol, many cultural activities would not exist without public subsidies. The legitimation of these expenditures is all the more likely to occur if cultural preferences of individuals are taken into account when designing projects. In this sense, we apply the Choice Experiment method to the valuation of a municipal music school project intended for residents of Angers (France), avoiding a superposition of tourism and cultural concerns. Using random parameters Logit and latent class models, we show the existence of a heterogeneity of the individuals' preferences according to their proximity to cultural and sporting activities. The results also indicate that it may be in the interest of public authorities to design a music school with a collective dimension beyond the interests of the only future users.