The determinants of household recycling: social influence,public policies and environmental preferences

Our article aims at understanding the determinants of households’ selective waste-sorting behaviours, based on data from an original survey of 694 individuals in the French Provence–Alpes–Côte d’Azur region. The applied literature focuses mainly on countries with high recycling rates. We focus on a region with the lowest recycling rate in France, a country that recycles less than the European country average. We first apply polychoric principal components analysis to reduce the number of explanatory variables to a set of six factors. In a second step, we use a probit model to estimate the probability of waste sorting as a function of these factors. This model tests several hypotheses emerging from the recent literature on behavioural economics applied to households’ selective sorting. This literature pays particular attention to the social influence on recycling behaviour, which has been studied mostly by sociologists and psychologists. The results of our empirical analysis confirm some of the findings in the literature. However, they also highlight some unique features, such as social influences having a negative impact on recycling. This finding contrasts with most of the literature, which finds a positive relationship of social influence on pro-environmental behaviour.     

ENDOGENOUS CONSUMER PARTICIPATION AND THE RECYCLING PROBLEM*

We endogenise the extent of consumer participation in the recycling process, and analyse its effect on the ‘recycling problem’. When recycling requires consumers to undertake costly sorting activities to separate scrap from household waste, they will participate only if the net reward from sorting is positive. Consumers' sorting cost is subject to a network effect arising due to social norms. With heterogeneous consumers differing in terms of their sorting cost, the entire output of the recyclable product may not be subsequently available as scrap to the recycling firms. This increases the virgin producer's monopoly power, and may also lead to multiple equilibria if the network effect of sorting is sufficiently large. The latter result suggests a role for the government in influencing equilibrium selection to improve social welfare. Depending on the fraction of consumers that participate in recycling, increased societal pressure on consumers to recycle may decrease consumer participation and increase the virgin producer's market power.     

“互联网+再生资源回收”模式推进机制的三方演化博弈研究

随着垃圾分类政策逐步在全国范围内推行,一些企业将互联网技术与垃圾分类回收相结合,提出了“互联网+再生资源回收”的新模式,但目前该模式仍处于探索阶段,想要在全国范围内推广还有诸多问题需要解决。论文基于演化博弈论理论,构建“互联网+再生资源回收”模式下城市生活垃圾分类回收的演化博弈模型,对博弈三方行为决策进行分析以及仿真验证,研究结果表明：政府的监督成本、政府提供给垃圾分类企业和居民的财政补贴、政府对垃圾分类企业的行政处罚力度以及居民参与垃圾分类的直接收益等因素是制约三方演化博弈能否达到理想均衡状态的关键,进一步分析模型成因,并针对结果提出几点建议。     

Household Waste Management in a Swedish Municipality: Determinants of Waste Disposal, Recycling and Composting

This paper analyzes waste disposal, recycling and composting in a municipality in southwest Sweden. In 1994, Varberg introduced a weight-based billing system for household waste charging 1 kr/kg of waste and at the same time recycling centers were set up and a green shopping campaign was launched. This led to a significant reduction in waste collected and increased recycling. This study had access to actual measured data on waste disposal at the household level for a residential area called Tvååker, in addition to survey data for the same households. This makes it possible to carry out a more reliable and more detailed analysis than has been previously possible, particularly with respect to attitudinal variables. The most important determinants of each individual household's waste were composting of kitchen waste, living area, age and attitudes concerning the difficulty of recycling various materials. Separate sections look at composting behaviour, at willingness to pay for sound waste management and for the sake of comparison three other municipalities are also studied. The main finding is that economic incentives, although important, are not the only driving force behind the observed reduction in municipal waste: Given the proper infrastructure that facilitates recycling, people are willing to invest more time than can be motivated purely by savings on their waste management bill.     

Trait perceptions influence economic out-group bias: lab and field evidence from Vietnam

Group favoritism is typically directed toward in-group members and against out-group members, but these cross-group effects often vary. Little is known about why group effects on economic choices vary. We use a survey method developed in social psychology to measure stereotyped attitudes of one group toward another. These attitudes are then associated with prosociality in five experimental games (also using an unusual amount of individual-level sociodemographic control). We present evidence from an artificial field experiment of a majority group with high status (Vietnamese) exhibiting no disfavoritism toward a lower-status out-group (Khmer) and typical disfavoritism to a second out-group (Chinese). Both Vietnamese and Chinese groups see the Khmer as warm but incompetent, attitudes which seem to activate empathy rather than contempt. The results suggest that measuring between-group stereotype attitudes can be used to predict the sign of cross-group favoritism in other natural settings.     

Economic Incentives and Residential Waste Management in Taiwan: An Empirical Investigation

This paper presents an empirical study of how three waste management policies have affected residential waste generation and recycling behavior in Taiwan over the past decade. The three policies are unit-pricing of garbage in Taipei, a mandatory recycling program in Kaohsiung, and a nationwide policy of charging for plastic bags. We estimate policy effects on total waste, total recycling, and recycling of four specific materials, all measured by weight per capita. Unlike prior work, we find that unit-pricing and mandatory recycling policies lead to significant increases in recycling of most materials, as well as increased levels of total recycling and garbage reduction. The “plastic bag” policy is generally found to lower material-specific and total recycling rates, as well as total garbage volumes.     

Welfare‐improving adverse selection in credit markets*

A model of simultaneous adverse selection and moral hazard in a competitive credit market is developed and used to show that aggregate borrower welfare may be higher in the combined case than in the moral‐hazard‐only case. Adverse selection can be welfare improving because in the pooling equilibrium of the combined model, high‐quality borrowers cross subsidize low‐quality borrowers. The cross subsidization reduces the overall moral hazard effort effects, and the resulting gain in welfare may more than offset the welfare loss stemming from distorted investment choices. The analysis focuses on pooling equilibria because model structure precludes separating equilibria.     

The effect of experience and quantity-based pricing on the valuation of a curbside recycling program

Quantity-based pricing for garbage collection services and recycling programs are becoming increasingly popular methods of meeting municipal solid waste diversion objectives. This article investigates household willingness to pay (WTP) for a pilot curbside recycling program (CRP) in the presence of a quantity-based pricing scheme for garbage collection services, which allows a household to alter their garbage container size at a reduced price. Unlike previous studies that have modeled the simultaneity of these household decisions as a two-step process, we jointly estimate the household's intentions using a full-information maximum-likelihood (FIML) approach. Our results show a strong positive correlation between a household's WTP for a CRP and its stated intention to reduce its garbage container size when a CRP is offered. The positive correlation suggests that WTP will be higher for households which are more likely to reduce their garbage container size. Thus, in the presence of quantity-based pricing, a household's WTP for recycling more fully reflects the marginal social costs of garbage disposal.     

Waste management regulation: policy solutions and policy shortcomings

A model of packaging waste management is presented to explore the policy options available to governments to implement waste regulation in light of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR ). Our model endogenizes the packaging design as an additional determinant for the overall amount of waste jointly with consumers’ sorting effort and producers’ output decisions. The model shows that the policies that yield the first‐best allocation may not find public support. Furthermore, if the set of available policy instruments is limited, production and consumption of the good is likely to settle on a sub‐optimal level even though the optimal allocation may be achievable. Finally, the model demonstrates that a landfill tax may actually increase landfill waste in the presence of tradable credits for recycling activities. The results shed light on some shortcomings of existing regulatory schemes such as the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations of the UK .     

Explaining the variation in household recycling rates across the UK

Household waste recycling rates vary significantly both across and within regions of the UK. This paper attempts to explain the variation by using a new data set of waste recycling rates and policy determinants for all of the UK's 434 local authorities over the period 2006Q2 to 2008Q4. Our results suggest that the method of recycling collection chosen by policy makers is an important factor influencing the recycling rate. We also find an inverse relationship between the frequency of the residual waste collection and the recycling rate.     

Accounting for Latent Attitudes in Willingness-to-Pay Studies: The Case of Coastal Water Quality Improvements in Tobago

The study of human behaviour and in particular individual choices is of great interest in the field of environmental economics. Substantial attention has been paid to the way in which preferences vary across individuals, and there is a realisation that such differences are at least in part due to underlying attitudes and convictions. While this has been confirmed in empirical work, the methods typically employed are based on the arguably misguided use of responses to attitudinal questions as direct measures of underlying attitudes. As discussed in other literature, especially in transport research, this potentially leads to measurement error and endogeneity bias, and attitudes should rather be treated as latent variables. In this paper, we illustrate the use of such an Integrated Choice and Latent Variable model in the context of beach visitors?? willingness-to-pay for improvements in water quality. We show how a latent attitudinal variable, which we refer to as a pro-intervention attitude, helps explain both the responses from the stated choice exercise as well as answers to various rating questions related to respondent attitudes. The incorporation of the latent variable leads to important gains in model fit and substantially different willingness-to-pay patterns.     

Strategic sophistication of individuals and teams. Experimental evidence

Many important decisions require strategic sophistication. We examine experimentally whether teams act more strategically than individuals. We let individuals and teams make choices in simple games, and also elicit first- and second-order beliefs. We find that teams play the Nash equilibrium strategy significantly more often, and their choices are more often a best response to stated first order beliefs. Distributional preferences make equilibrium play less likely. Using a mixture model, the estimated probability to play strategically is 62% for teams, but only 40% for individuals. A model of noisy introspection reveals that teams differ from individuals in higher order beliefs.     

生态工业中的废物交换系统探讨

生态工业是基于产业生态学理论兴起的全新工业运作模式．它强调的是工业共生与资源循环利用．通过物质流、能量流和信患流的相互联系．使一个企业的废物作为另一个企业的原料加以利用，达到社会经济和环境效益的最大化。本文通过分析三种不同生态工业中的废物交换，并对其管理手段、经济效益和环境效益进行对比．显示建立工业生态废弃物交换系统有利于实现资源利用效率的最大化和污染排放的最小化。基于互联网的生态工业废物交换系统可以有效降低企业废物交换的时间和成本，增强生态工业链的秉性抗风险能力。     

Sad or Happy? The Effects of Emotions on Stated Preferences for Environmental Goods

A substantial literature in behavioural science and psychology shows that emotions affect human choices and values. This paper investigates whether such emotional impacts are also present in stated choice experiments for environmental goods. If this were so, it would introduce an additional element of context dependence to the welfare measures derived from such methods, and would be at odds with the rational choice model underlying welfare economics. A laboratory experiment using three different emotion treatments was combined with a stated preference choice experiment concerned with changes in coastal water quality and fish populations in New Zealand. No statistically significant effects of changes in emotional state on estimated preference parameters, willingness to pay or the randomness of choices were found. The paper concludes by questioning, why such a contrast exists with empirical findings in behavioural science.     

Evaluating Unit-Based Pricing of Residential Solid Waste: A Panel Data Analysis

Municipalities introduced unit-based pricing (UBP) with the aim of achieving a decrease in household waste generation and for the replacement of unsorted waste with recycling. Although many studies have shown that UBP has a short-run effect on recycling, few works have tackled the long-run effect on waste generation and recycling. By using panel data for 665 Japanese cities over 8 years, we examine the long-run effect of UBP on waste generation and recycling. The estimation results in waste generation suggest that there is a rebound effect, though a small one. We confirm that the effect of UBP on recycling sustains for the long run. We also find that the short- and long-run responses to an economic incentive for recycling activities differ with income groups. Recycling among the high-income group has not been promoted by implementation of UBP, but people in that group are willing to participate in recycling without an economic incentive. In contrast, recycling activity within the low-income group is strongly motivated by UBP for many years.     

我国废纸循环利用的适度水平研究

废弃物循环利用的适度水平是构建循环经济的一个重要问题。以废纸的再利用为例,在界定废纸循环利用的社会效益与社会成本的基础上,综合运用生命周期分析方法与环境影响经济评估方法识别并货币化度量废纸循环利用的边际社会效益,构建了我国废纸循环利用的边际成本函数,进而分析我国废纸循环利用的适度水平。研究结果表明,2008年我国用废纸替代木材生产1吨纸浆的社会效益为14 037元,社会福利最大化下的废纸循环利用适度水平为60.1%,高于同期国内废纸循环利用的实际水平39.5%,适当提高现阶段我国废纸循环利用的水平可以增加整个社会的福利。     

A Post-Consumer Waste Management Model for Determining Optimal Levels of Recycling and Landfilling

The present study examines the optimal recycling rate for municipal solid waste. First, an optimal control model is developed to account for the physical costs of recycling, the social costs of landfilling, and consumers' environmental preferences. Second, an optimal solution is simulated using waste disposal data from the Helsinki region in Finland. The benefits from recycling are included in the simulation using the results of a recent contingent valuation study. The results of the present research suggest that mandates for achieving 50% recycling in municipalities are not far-fetched and are both economically and environmentally justified.     

Heterogeneous Preferences for Community Recycling Programs

This paper examines household preferences for community recycling programs, which have both public and private good dimensions. The data come from a survey conducted in Seattle (WA) which elicited stated preference-contingent ratings for different recycling programs relative to status quo, with experimental variation in the overall community recycling rate achieved and expected household cost. The recycling rate is interpreted as capturing the public benefits of recycling programs and constitutes the most common measure used by policy agencies for setting waste management objectives and evaluating policy initiatives. The analysis begins with fixed parameter models that explore different ways of handling rating data and mixed logit estimations that capture household preference heterogeneity both within and across different recycling programs. This analysis yields unique estimates of willingness to pay for an increase in the community recycling rate. Predicted individual-specific utility parameters are then regressed on household background information to explicitly examine the nature of preference heterogeneity. Overall, this paper generates interpretable policy-relevant insights into the public and private good dimensions of community recycling programs.     

Optimizing production technology choices: conventional production vs. recycling

The present study examines the optimal use of renewable resources and how optimality is linked to the accumulation of waste stock. Production technology choices are based on a maximization of a discounted stream of net utility over time with respect to constancy of environmental services. When adopting a socially optimal tax-subsidy scheme to price produced goods, the ultimate utility level is determined by how tax revenues and subsidies compensate each other in monetary terms. Therefore, the constraints imposed on the optimal use of economic instruments in promoting recycling when a government budget is balanced are also studied. The materials balance structure of the model yields steady-state comparative statics and dynamic envelope results with interesting policy implications.