a proposed structural model for housewives recycling behavior a case study from turkey recycling is a major factor in environmental behavior as it supports the conservation of natural resources and reduces the amount of solid watablste in addition to its environmental benefits recycling is also an effective way to fundraise although recycling is commonplace in many countries it is still relatively rare in turkey in this study the attitudes and behaviors of housewives toward recycling were investigated using ajzen s theory of planned behavior tpb and the proposed structural equation model sem it was found that the housewives recycling model hrm obtained as a result of the analysis could be employed to explain their recycling behavior in particular the research established that the positive ideas housewives have in terms of their perceived behavioral control and the individuals in their immediate social surroundings whose opinions they value have a positive impact on guiding their recycling behavior

a pure financial explanation for trade credit this paper provided a pure financial explanation for the existence of trade credit and for the values of the credit terms offered to customers two motives for extending trade credit were identified the pure operating flexibility motive arises because the opportunity to change credit policy provides the seller an efficient way to respond to fluctuations in demand this motive was eliminated from consideration in this paper by assuming constant demand the seller must hold a liquid reserve when the financial markets are imperfect and the desire to earn an excess rate of return on this reserve explains the pure financial intermediary motive for trade credit the pure financial incentive to lend this liquid reserve to customers was examined by viewing a market borrowing rate of interest that exceeds the market lending rate of interest as a hindrance to trade or equivalently as a financial market tariff this tariff imposes a wedge between the market prices paid and received for the product plus a loan and thereby inflicts a loss of surplus on the seller and buyers trade credit lending enables the seller and or the buyers to recapture at least part of this loss when the source of the tariff does not apply to direct loans to customers financial market tariffs caused by transactions costs fulfill this requirement because the trade credit lender s familiarity with its customers and product provide it with information and collection cost advantages over financial intermediaries tariffs caused by financial intermediary rents fulfill this requirement as well because the parties to a trade credit loan do not employ the services of a financial intermediary increasing opportunity costs and financial market imperfections in addition to the ones described above establish the limits of credit policy the optimal amount of accounts receivable is derived from the condition that the marginal revenue of trade credit lending is equal to the marginal cost this condition combined with factoring costs produces a unique finite optimal credit period accrual accounting for income tax purposes imposes an additional restriction because the firm is taxed on the recovery of its opportunity costs these limitations on credit policy were examined separately in this paper for clarity but they are in effect simultaneously in practice

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

income and the recycling effort a maximization problem abstract this paper theoretically derives the impact of changes in the household s income on its trash recycling effort comparative statics are developed to derive the expression for the change in the amount recycled with a change in income each term in the expression is shown to have an economic interpretation the magnitude and the likely signs of the terms are discussed in determining the direction of the net effect finally empirical estimates from previous research are evaluated within the context of the implications of the theoretical derivations

generation of household solid waste in oecd countries an empirical analysis using macroeconomic data while there are numerous studies that use household level and community level data to examine the determinants of household solid waste generation rates little empirical work has been previously undertaken using macroeconomic data using a cross sectional time series database of solid waste in countries that are part of the organisation for economic co operation and development oecd we provide evidence on the economic and demographic determinants of generation rates of household solid waste with respect to economic activity and population density the results are largely consistent with results found in previous studies however additional insights are gained on the effects of factors such as household size and composition as well as the degree of urbanization

policy evaluation with combined actual and contingent response data the city of marietta georgia experimentally switched from flat fee financing to volume based pricing for its trash services in january 1994 both before and during the experiment detailed data on individuals observed responses to the actual introduction and contingent behavioral responses to a hypothetical introduction of volume based pricing were collected this study applies these data and investigates the methodology of collecting contingent behavior data and their use in policy analysis in particular this study empirically evaluates the effect of experience with the policy on responses to contingent behavior questions and tests for potential bias in the contingent behavior data

measuring the effects of regulation with stock price data this article examines the usefulness of stock returns in measuring the effects of regulation when the dates on which market expectations change are not known and standard sources e g the wall street journal are used to choose announcement dates twenty major changes in regulatory constraint since 1887 are considered tests using either monthly or daily data are found to have surprisingly little ability to detect the effects of regulation the evidence shows that formal regulatory announcements are generally anticipated in cases where it is unclear when expectations change

recycling in multifamily dwellings does convenience matter factors that decrease the the cost of recycling have significant positive correlations with recycling rates in multifamily dwellings mfds waste management experts have previously used anecdotes to infer a link between convenience and waste diversion rates in mfd recycling programs this article confirms and quantifies that link by applying probit and double censored to bit analysis to survey data from 214 households in urbana illinois we find a strong connection between recycling rates and the perceived presence of adequate interior space for processing recyclables and distance to recycling bins affects container recycling intensity the results have implications for cost effective design of mfd recycling programs jel di q2 i introduction statistics from the u s environmental protection agency epa show that from 1960 to 1997 u s recycling rates rose from 6 4 to 28 and 9 000 curbside recycling programs were established epa 1998 such programs have traditionally been geared toward single family dwellings sfds conventional doctrine has been that recycling activity is likely to be limited in multifamily dwellings mfds however as residential recycling rates for sfds plateau in the united states solid waste managers and policy makers are becoming increasingly interested in mfd recycling programs by now at least half of all mfds may have access to a curbside recycling program epa 2001 stevens 1999 and the epa 1999 2001 show that waste diversion rates the fraction of a household s waste that is recycled instead of discarded as refuse tend to be slightly lower in mfds than in sfds but some mfd recycling programs have yielded diversion rates as high as 60 what factors influence the recycling rates chosen by residents of mfds in a detailed nationwide study the epa 2001 found that successful 20 or higher diversion rate mfd recycling programs tended to have large and numerous containers provided by the recycling service waste management experts emphasize the importance of convenience in yielding high waste diversion rates in mfd recycling programs with some record setting programs using strategies like doorstep pickup of recyclables in high rise apartment buildings epa 1999 such anecdotes are intriguing however although much work has studied sfd recycling behavior little has been done to explore mfd recycling in a rigorous statistical fashion a number of economists have studied the sensitivity of recycling behavior to pricing policies that alter the costs and benefits of recycling relative to disposal 1 another body of work has investigated the influence of nonpecuniary policies and variables on recycling in sfds work by vining and ebreo 1990 and ebreo and vining 2000 supports the notion that convenience may increase the number of people that identify themselves as recyclers however their data are strictly qualitative the earlier study dates from a time when only community drop off recycling was available and the later study is focused on public attitudes toward and expectations regarding changes in recycling policy jakus et al 1996 1997 use economic models and rigorous empirical analysis to study the influence on actual recycling behavior of recycling promotional campaigns and policies to alter the time cost of recycling they find evidence that recycling participation is not a function of home ownership or renting status per se however these articles do not delve into the details of mfd recycling because the data were collected in the context of rural drop off recycling a few studies have turned their attention to mfd recycling stevens 1999 finds that programs with high aggregate diversion rates are likely to have a relatively large ratio of collection bins to households mcquaid and murdoch 1996 conduct a qualitative analysis of mfd recycling in edinburgh that suggests that housing characteristics such as floor level presence of an elevator and household size may influence recycling rates

environmental kuznets curves real progress or passing the buck abstract recent research has examined the hypothesis of an environmental kuznets curve ekc the notion that environmental impact increases in the early stages of development followed by declines in the later stages these studies have focused on the relationship between per capita income and a variety of environmental indicators results imply that ekcs may exist for a number of cases however the measures of environmental impact used generally focus on production processes and reflect environmental impacts that are local in nature and for which abatement is relatively inexpensive in terms of monetary costs and or lifestyle changes significantly more consumption based measures such co2 emissions and municipal waste for which impacts are relatively easy to externalize or costly to control show no tendency to decline with increasing per capita income by considering consumption and trade patterns the author re examines the concept of the ekc and proposes the use of alternative consumption based measures of environmental impact the author speculates that what appear to be improvements in environmental quality may in reality be indicators of increased ability of consumers in wealthy nations to distance themselves from the environmental degradation associated with their consumption

quality competition and environmental damage is there a role for network preferences abstract we consider from a theoretical and empirical viewpoint how network preferences of consumers which differ in their willingness to pay wtp for green goods affect the equilibrium configuration of a vertically differentiated duopoly when a cleaner firm competes against a dirtier rival we find that a trade off can emerge between emissions abatement and the catching up process of the dirtier firm can emerge in particular emissions decrease only when consumers with low wtp have network preferences still in this case only the cleaner firm has an incentive to improve its environmental quality along the quality ladder while the laggard firm is tied to its backward profile these theoretical predictions are empirically tested by exploiting the duality of italy s economy with high income citizens mainly concentrated in northern regions while low income citizens are largely located in the south we adopt a fixed effects spatial error model at the provincial level to relate variables on firms environmental management system with citizens environmental behaviour proxied by the recycling rate overall the empirical estimates are in line with the theoretical predictions from the empirical analysis it emerges that consumers environmental behaviour positively affects enterprises future environmental choices moreover firms have a stronger incentive to raise their environmental quality when low income consumers namely those buying dirtier variants internalise the network effect

does european union environmental policy pass a costâ benefit test most european union countries are committed to some form of regulatory impact assessment and in some cases these assessments involve the formal use of cost benefit analysis the european treaty of union also calls for a comparison of costs and benefits for all european regulations despite this only a limited number of regulations have been subject to cost benefit analysis using a variety of sources this paper investigates whether or not a selection of major environmental regulations would pass a cost benefit test the general answer is that while some do most do not this finding has major implications for the efficiency of european environmental legislation and reflects on the willingness of member states to sign up to inefficient regulation

an analysis of oil production by opec countries persistence breaks and outliers this study examines the time series behaviour of oil production for opec member countries within a fractional integration modelling framework recognizing the potential for structural breaks and outliers the analysis is undertaken using monthly data from january 1973 to october 2008 for 13 opec member countries the results indicate there is mean reverting persistence in oil production with breaks identified in 10 out of the 13 countries examined thus shocks affecting the structure of opec oil production will have persistent effects in the long run for all countries and in some cases the effects are expected to be permanent

estimating consumer willingness to supply and willingness to pay for curbside recycling we estimate the willingness to pay for curbside recycling based on a contingent valuation survey of 600 residents of a large southeastern united states city the best estimate of willingness to pay for curbside recycling is 2 29 month after adjustment for hypothetical bias we also report the results of a field experiment designed to test the effectiveness of explicit monetary incentives and communication appeals to influence the decision to recycle and the quantity of materials to recycle while households respond to the monetary cost of recycling the effects of the token ex ante incentives and appeals appear to be small jel d61 q21

a cost effectiveness analysis for incineration or recycling of dutch household plastic waste the cost effectiveness of two different plastic waste treatment options is compared this paper evaluates the recycling of plastic waste with the more conventional incineration of plastic waste using data for the netherlands both options have specific revenues and costs the main benefit from plastic recycling is the avoidance of co2 emissions that otherwise would occur during incineration and from the production of virgin new plastic material at the same time there are significant costs involved such as collection separation sorting and recycling the benefit from plastic waste incineration is the energy that can be recovered which reduces emissions in the regular energy production sector by displacing production the main cost associated with incineration is that this requires a waste to energy plant with the associated capital investments summing the costs and revenues from both plastic waste treatment options and comparing the results leads to an implicit co2 abatement price of 178 t of co2 in case of plastic recycling in general this implicit price is much higher than current or historic ets prices the estimated external costs of co2 emissions or alternatives to reduce co2 emissions e g renewable energy a sensitivity analysis shows that this conclusion is robust

an econometric analysis of global waste paper recovery and utilization the main purpose of this paper is to provide aneconometric analysis of the most importantdeterminants of inter country differences inwaste paper recovery and utilization rates byemploying pooled t

power industry restructuring and eco efficiency changes a new slacks based model in malmquist luenberger index measurement measuring variations in efficiency and its extension eco efficiency during a restructuring period in different industries has always been a point of interest for regulators and policy makers this paper assesses the impacts of restructuring of procurement in the iranian power industry on the performance of power plants we introduce a new slacks based model for malmquist luenberger ml index measurement and apply it to the power plants to calculate the efficiency eco efficiency and technological changes over the 8 year period 2003 2010 of restructuring in the power industry the results reveal that although the restructuring had different effects on the individual power plants the overall growth in the eco efficiency of the sector was mainly due to advances in pure technology we also assess the correlation between efficiency and eco efficiency of the power plants which indicates a close relationship between these two steps thus lending support to the incorporation of environmental factors in efficiency analysis

entry in commercial banking 1962 78 the banking act of 1935 provided for greatly tightened federal regulation of entry into the bank industry in a well known study peltzman 1965 investigated whether this legislation in fact had affected the entry rate in the industry he found a significant downward shift of the intercept in his model of the relation between the entry rate and its economic determinants in the post 1935 period 1

effects of norms and opportunity cost of time on household recycling social and moral norms and the opportunity cost of time will affect household recycling efforts a model is developed to describe how norms affect the recycling decision through feelings of self respect guilty conscience and warm glow as well as respect in and sanctions from the community we find that the opportunity cost of time has a significant negative effect on household recycling all indicators of warm glow social and moral norms increase household recycling efforts we find no evidence of crowding out neither when recycling is perceived as mandatory nor when economic incentives are introduced in the form of a differentiated garbage fee

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

curbside recycling in the presence of alternatives we measure the extent to which curbside access affects quantity recycled we use novel data to distinguish between new recycling and material diverted from other recycling modes we find that the marginal impact of expanding curbside programs on total recycled quantities is small in part because curbside programs significantly cannibalize returns from drop off recycling centers failure to account for cannibalization from other modes may substantially over estimate the benefits of curbside programs we conclude with simple cost effectiveness comparisons results suggest that incremental expansion of curbside access may not be cost effective

the siting of hazardous waste facilities in federal systems the political economy of nimby this paper offers a new political economy explanation for thepervasive problem of siting hazardous waste treatment facilitiesin federal system we first show that a decentralized systemyields the first best waste treatment capacity level and that acentralized structure gives rise to free riding behavior amonglocal jurisdictions in our model each community seeks toinfluence the central government through political contributions this leads to suboptimal levels of treatment capacity thecapacity is increasing in the compensation level if the marginalbenefit of treatment capacity is sufficiently large and in thegovernment s weight on aggregate social welfare relative tolobbying activities the centralized system can replicate thedecentralized system with a sufficiently high compensation level since compensation has proved difficult a centralized systemfaces greater obstacles than a decentralized system

an economic analysis of household recycling of solid wastes the case of portland oregon abstract solid waste is one of the residuals generated by economic activities faced with rising disposal costs communities are implementing programs to encourage recycling activities this paper investigates the role of price incentives and other socio economic factors in household recycling participation in recycling is modeled as an ordered probit choice using a large sample of households from the portland oregon metropolitan area demand for solid waste collection is estimated using two stage least squares results indicate that increases in disposal fees encourage recycling although demand for solid waste collection services is not reduced substantially

the determinants of household recycling social influence public policies and environmental preferences abstractour 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 cote 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 fin

household responses to pricing garbage by the bag this paper estimates household reaction to the implementation of unit pricing for the collection of residential garbage we gather original data on weight and volume of weekly garbage and recycling of 75 households in charlottesville virginia both before and after the start of a program that requires an eighty cent sticker on each bag of garbage this data set is the first of its kind we estimate household demands for the collection of garbage and recyclable material the effect on density of household garbage and the amount of illegal dumping by households we also estimate the probability that a household chooses each method available to reduce its garbage in response to the implementation of this unit pricing program we find that households 1 reduced the weight of their garbage by 14 2 reduced the volume of garbage by 37 and 3 increased the weight of their recyclable materials by 16 we estimate that additional illegal or at least suspicious disposal accounts for 0 42 pounds per person per week or 28 of the reduction in garbage observed at the curb this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

one without the other behavioural and incentive policies for household waste management this paper provides a review of economic studies that analyses the use of multiple policies to cope with waste management problems we discuss the factors that influence selective sorting behaviour and the most appropriate policies for their promotion based on the works analysed our survey shows the original features of waste as an environmental problem requiring regulation the traditional approach in which decisions respond to rational behaviour particularly cost savings has some limits although not all public policies seem justified we argue that there might be a need for specific policies to promote recycling preferably based on the provision of information to consumers or on behavioural instruments indeed personal factors specific to each individual such as emotions and the influence of social interaction should be taken into account in the development of public policies we review the literature related to different rationales and identify some avenues for future research

recycling social norms and warm glow revisited we examine the role of social norms and warm glow in a theoretical framework and establish that improving the quality of recycling facilities for example through kerbside collection will elicit more recycling effort if warm glow is present drawing on the literature we model the role of social norms with reference to age profile ethnicity and geographical location of the reference group using english local authority data we show that a social norm for recycling does exist we find the expected relationship between the quality of kerbside provision and recycling activity if the household derives warm glow from the activity however it is insignificant amongst the control variables we find evidence that multifamily dwellings recycle less

managing municipal solid waste with unit based pricing policy effects and responsiveness to pricing many municipalities across the united states have turned to unit based pricing also known as pay as you throw payt as a vehicle for reducing municipal solid waste generation increasing recycling and promoting equity in paying for the service in this paper we reevaluate the standard analytical methods used to examine the impact of payt in the literature and illustrate that econometric shortcomings may have led to underestimation of policy effects a two tier analytical approach to examining payt program effects is proposed and is demonstrated in a case study of new hampshire municipalities

technical change organizational form and the structure of bank production of those technological characteristics related to the nature of competition among firms in an industry or market scale economies and technical change are especially important economies of scale are said to exist when an equiproportional increase in all inputs results in a greater than proportional increase in output or equivalently when an increase in output at constant input prices leads to a less than proportional increase in total costs thus average costs decline as output expands depending upon the extent to which costs decline as output increases regulation of the firms in the industry may be necessary l the literature analyzing scale economies in commercial banking is voluminous the early studies on scale economies in banking include those by benston 1965 1972 greenbaum 1967 murphy 1972 and bell and murphy 1968 more recent studies include those by benston hanweck and humphrey 1982 and clark 1984 2 this literature has established that mild scale economies exist in bank

adopting a unit pricing system for municipal solid waste policy and socio economic determinants concerns about the environmental and aesthetic damages of municipal solid waste pollution have triggered policy reform at all levels of government as part of this effort public officials are integrating market based policy instruments such as unit pricing into their solid waste plans despite the economic advantages of unit pricing constituency response has been mixed and hence adoption rates have been below expectations if the associated gains are to be realized public officials must identify the key factors that influence this decision to that end this research empirically estimates the determinants of unit pricing adoption at the community level of analysis based on data for all cities and towns in massachusetts the results indicate that demographics socio economic attributes fiscal capacity and policy instruments influence this decision

what can regulators regulate the case of bank entry previous researchers have claimed that the banking acts of 1933 and 1935 reduced the annual rate of entry of new commercial banks by as much as 50 percent between 1936 and 1962 in contrast the authors find that this legislation did not reduce bank entry rates previous studies did not account for legislative changes that reduced restrictions over branch banking and stimulated growth in the number of branches in about half the states during the 1936 62 period after accounting for these changes in branching laws it becomes clear that entry of new banks was depressed by growth in branch banks not by restrictive federal regulations copyright 1992 by ohio state university press

environmental regulation of households an empirical review of economic and psychological factors abstract the literature on sustainable consumption and environmental regulation of household behavior is dominated by conceptual and normative approaches as a result many suggestions lack a firm empirical basis to overcome this deficiency econometric studies in three areas of environmentally relevant activities of households are reviewed residential use of energy generation of solid waste and recycling and residential use of water next to price and income elasticities attention is devoted to individual socio economic features and psychological factors such as attitudes knowledge perceptions and values potential psychological determinants and related insights are further examined by discussing a range of representative and illustrative statistical psychological studies of environmental behavior one important general finding is that there are very few empirical studies that systematically combine socio economic and psychological determinants a range of insights for environmental policy is derived and research recommendations are offered

landfilling versus backstop recycling when income is growing the paper considers a dynamic model in which an income stream growing over time is optimally divided into consumption andexpenditures on waste disposal the latter being optimally dividedbetween recycling and landfilling recycling is thoughtof as a backstop waste disposal technology it does notrequire landfill space but is a relatively expensive method ofwaste disposal landfilling uses up scarce landfill capacity while conserving landfill space is the major reason themunicipality recycles another motive for recycling might be thatrecycling itself generates utility our analysis suggests thatthe optimal recycling program varies considerably with bothlandfill capacity and initial income for example richermunicipalities are likely to introduce recycling much earlier inthe planning period than poorer municipalities thus whenlegislating recycling national or regional governments must besensitive to the differences between municipalities

municipal waste kuznets curves evidence on socio economic drivers and policy effectiveness from the eu waste generation and waste disposal are becoming increasingly prominent in the environmental arena from a policy perspective and in the context of delinking analysis in general waste generation is still increasing proportionally with income and economic and environmental costs associated to landfilling are also increasing this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of waste generation incineration and landfill dynamics based on panel data for the eu25 to assess the effects of different drivers economic structural policy and the eventual differences between western and eastern eu countries we show that for waste generation there is still no waste kuznets curve wkc trend although elasticity to income drivers appears lower than in the past landfill and other policy effects do not seem to provide backward incentives for waste prevention and in terms of landfill and incineration as expected they are respectively decreasing and increasing with policy acting as a strong driver eastern countries appear to be performing generally quite well thus benefiting from eu membership and related policies in terms of environmental performance we can conclude that although absolute delinking is far from being achieved for waste generation there are some first positive signs of an increasing relative delinking for waste generation and robust landfill diversion and varying evidence of a significant role of the eu waste policies implemented in the late 1990s and early 2000s our evidence suggests that if while landfill diversion is currently associated to a delinking partly explained by eu policies waste prevention must be the next objective of waste regulation efforts

garbage and recycling with endogenous local policy abstract this paper estimates the impact of garbage fees and curbside recycling programs on garbage and recycling amounts without correction for endogenous policy a price per bag of garbage has a negative effect on garbage and a positive cross price effect on recycling correction for endogenous local policy increases the effect of the user fee on garbage and the effect of curbside recycling collection on recycling introducing a fee of 1 per bag is estimated to reduce garbage by 412 pounds per person per year 44 but to increase recycling by only 30 pounds per person per year

the cold shiver of not giving enough on the social cost of recycling campaigns governments sometimes try to increase individuals contributions to public goods through appeals to consumer responsibility rather than by economic incentives for example in recycling campaigns using standard consumer theory one would hardly expect such campaigns to work at all but if consumers are motivated by norms appeals may work through changing consumers perception of the normrequirement however increasing voluntary contributions through appeals may come at a social cost the reason is that appeals work through imposing a heavier perceived responsibility on consumers this represents a welfare loss which is not necessarily outweighed by warm glow benefits

an eu recycling target what does the dutch evidence tell us the european union eu advocates a household waste recycling rate of more than 65 although the netherlands has already invested heavily in recycling policies this is still a big challenge as nowadays this rate is approximately 50 on average and very few no municipalities have a rate above 65 given this practice it is possible to learn from the dutch experience which policies are effective in increasing recycling rates based on a large panel data set for the netherlands we show that unit based pricing avoiding a duo bin for unsorted and compostable waste and reducing the frequency of collecting unsorted and compostable waste at the curbside are effective in raising the recycling rate however only a bag based pricing system has a substantial effect but this policy can have some adverse effects other unit based pricing systems have effects of less than 10 points in nearly all cases changing the frequency of collection of recyclables has no or very small effects moreover the complementarity between unit based pricing and curbside service is low overall it seems very difficult to reach the eu goal of 65 with the policies applied

sustainability of energy production and use in iran abstract the issue of oil and gas policies in iran is rather complex in the present investigation it is aimed to formulate plans for increasing the capacity of the country s energy production analysis of energy consumption pattern over last decades is indicative of inefficient usage the low energy prices in iran do not reflect economic costs further distortions exist in the tariff structures of most energy sources and in their relative prices it is recognized that price reform is a key policy element for promotion of energy conservation and fuel substitution with renewable energies mitigation policies in the energy sector are crucial to iran s overall policies emission of greenhouse gases can be reduced from 752 156 to 560 791 gg co 2 equivalents in 2010 by implementing the policies proposed for the energy sub sectors enhancing energy efficiency including combined cycle power generation has proved to be the most economic option for greenhouse gases reduction in energy sector iran s energy consumption pattern is unsustainable and consumption oriented

eco efficiency change in power plants using a slacks based measure for the meta frontier malmquist luenberger productivity index abstract malmquist luenberger index is a popular index deployed for evaluating eco efficiency and productivity change over a certain period when both desirable and undesirable factors are jointly produced in some production processes however conventional data envelopment analysis dea models used for computing this index are unable to distinguish the various technologies employed by the decision making units when heterogeneity exists in the technology the meta frontier malmquist luenberger approach is adopted to evaluate eco efficiency and productivity change over a period when undesirable outputs are incorporated in the analysis of efficiency in this paper a new slacks based dea measure is developed and used to compute the meta frontier malmquist luenberger productivity index this approach is then deployed to evaluate 48 iranian thermal power plants productivity change in three different categories steam gas and combined cycle over an eight year period of restructuring in the power industry this technique enables the calculation of eco efficiency change of thermal power plants operating under different technologies as well as the technology gap ratios and measures the extent to which the efficiency frontiers of individual categories of power plants deviate from the meta frontier the results reveal that the last years of the restructuring period saw a greater rate of productivity growth compared to the initial years and evidence of significant eco efficiency improvements over the period in all the three types of the thermal power plants finally it is expected that the findings in this study aid policy makers and power industry regulators in developing sustainable energy policies towards environmental protection and planning power plant operations

household behavior under alternative pay as you throw systems for solid waste disposal in 1994 residents of marietta georgia participated in a pay as you throw solid waste demonstration project rather than pay a fixed monthly fee for collection half of the resi dents paid a fee per reusable trash can and half paid for each nonreusable trash bag collected data from both a sample of households and city wide totals indicate that the programs signifi cantly reduced waste set outs even after account ingfor increases in unpriced recycling the bag program caused larger reductions 36 than the subscription can program 14 rough esti mates of the program indicate both savings for residents and social welfare increases jel q20

does garbage pricing increase the immoral disposal of household waste abstractsome empirical studies have attempted to clarify the mechanism of illegal dumping by examining the degree to which per bag pricing plays a role however previous research on the behaviour of avoiding paying a charge for waste collection has tended to neglect so called immoral disposal which is less risky than illegal dumping because there is no legal penalty in this study we define immoral disposal as the dumping of waste in a manner that is immoral but not illegal to detect the existence of immoral disposal we apply a spatial econometric approach namely an extended panel spatial durbin model to identify the actual spillover effect of garbage pricing in neighbouring municipalities on immoral disposal from the total waste a major finding of this study is that immoral disposal exists in unit based pricing two tiered pricing and fixed pricing

effects of unit based garbage pricing a differences in differences approach using a unique 10 year dataset of all 458 dutch municipalities we apply a differences in differences approach to estimate the effect of unit based pricing on household waste quantities and recycling community level studies of unit based pricing typically do not include fixed effects at the local level we find that failure to do so may substantially inflate the estimated price effect we also find that unit based pricing may be endogenous and use instrumental variables to account for this our analysis shows that user fees depend on user fees in neighboring jurisdictions policy interaction our estimate of the garbage reduction per 1 user fee is lower than any previous estimate bar one the price effect depends on the pricing system weight based systems reduce garbage quantities more than volume based systems user fees increase recycling especially of paper but not nearly as much as they reduce garbage quantities we find no evidence for waste tourism or illegal dumping

factors influencing willingness to accept different waste management policies empirical evidence from the european union abstract improving waste management strategies with more collaborative participation and responsibility of different public and private agents is a matter of increasing concern for academia and policy makers based on data from 28 european countries the present study unlike other previous studies analyzing the influence of individual drivers for waste generation or recycling evaluates different options for waste management government based fair consumer and producer responsibility for this the influence of individual and socio demographic characteristics age gender education level and occupational status contextual variables rural or urban country of origin and the environmental awareness of 23 976 individuals are considered being a woman being well educated having a good job and living in a rural or small town increase the probability of being a fair consumer while men and people living in a large town are more willing to entrust this responsibility to firms the government based solution is only chosen by low educated people finally individuals with the highest environmental awareness and effort prefer to pay while those who are less environmentally conscious prefer government action the findings show that factors explaining individual acceptance of these different waste management policies wmp are essential for implementing proactive and preventive approaches to enhance responsibility and involvement of all stakeholder groups consumers firms and institutions

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

the displacement effect of convenience the case of recycling in light of increasingly ambitious recycling targets it is important to analyse the potential displacement effect of improving access to kerbside provision on other forms of recycling do households view the different modes of recycling as substitutes or complements of each other does this perceived relationship depend on the type of material recycled using data for all of the uk s local governments from 2004q2 to 2013q3 we analyse the nature of the relationship between the two main channels of recycling in the case of dry recycling the empirical findings are ambiguous on the trade off between kerbside and non kerbside recycling on the one hand the findings suggest that there is no trade off when considering the effect of expanding kerbside provision on the other hand the findings also suggest that there is a trade off when we focus on the effect of expanding non kerbside provision however putting together the empirical findings with theory in particular the symmetry property of the hicksian substitution effect suggests that there is a trade off irrespective of whether we consider expansion of kerbside or non kerbside provision in the case of green compost recycling the empirical findings on their own or together with theory unambiguously suggest that there is a trade off