scrap prices waste and recycling policy this study examines the effect of waste and recycling policy on scrap prices and the importance of scrap price feedbacks as a determinant of policy costs price effects and direct and indirect channels of waste reduction are decomposed for deposit refund advance disposal fee and recycling subsidies scrap price feedbacks decrease the cost of advance disposal fees increase the cost of recycling subsidies and have an ambiguous effect on the cost of deposit refund simulation analysis finds that scrap price feedbacks substantially affect the costs of the policies and alter the ranking of instruments jel q53 q58

local pay determination theoretical models of local pay are reviewed ranging from neoclassical perspectives unemployment wage trade off models and segmented labor market approaches the empirical work on u s north south differentials is discussed for the u k studies of the extent of and trends in geographical pay differentials are considered as well as behavioral explanations focusing on the role of excess demand the issue of adjustment processes is then discussed both in theory and in relation to empirical work for the u s and u k this discussion focuses largely on geographical spillover effects in terms of origins evidence and issues of identification finally the impact of certain impediments in the adjustment process are considered specifically in relation to the u k these concern the role and influence of national wage bargaining as well as factors inhibiting labor migration stemming from the housing market and the climate of the national labor market copyright 1992 by blackwell publishers ltd

productivity gains from geographic concentration of human capital evidence from the cities abstract based on recent theoretical developments the argument is made that the average level of human capital is a local public good cities with higher average levels of human capital should therefore have higher wages and higher land rents after conditioning on the characteristics of individual workers and dwellings this prediction is supported by data for standard metropolitan statistical areas smsas in the united states where the smsa average levels of formal education and work experience are used as proxies for the average level of human capital the alternative explanations of omitted smsa variables and self selection are evaluated an estimate of the effect of an additional year of average education on total factor productivity is computed

urban wages and labor market agglomeration abstract using the 5 public use micro sample of the 1990 u s census we find that observationally equivalent workers in the manufacturing sector earn higher wages when they are in urban labor markets that have a larger share of national or metropolitan employment in their same occupation and industry groups quantitatively the effect is large with an elasticity measured at the means of between 1 2 and 3 6 for these effects we interpret the willingness of firms to pay more for equivalent workers in dense markets as evidence of an agglomeration economy in urban labor

garbage recycling and illicit burning or dumping abstract with garbage and recycling as the only two disposal options we confirm prior results that the optimal curbside fee for garbage collection equals the direct resource cost plus external environment cost when illicit burning or dumping is a third disposal option that cannot be taxed directly the optimal curbside tax on garbage changes sign the optimal fee structure is a deposit refund system a tax on all output plus a rebate on proper disposal through either recycling or garbage collection the output tax helps achieve the first best allocation even though it affects the choice between consumption and untaxed leisure

success in entrepreneurship a complementarity between schooling and wage work experience what makes a successful entrepreneur using danish register data we find strong support for the hypothesis that theoretical skills from schooling and practical skills acquired through wage work are complementary inputs in the human capital earnings function of entrepreneurs in fact we find that schooling only pays off in combination with wage work experience as the returns to schooling are insignificant when the entrepreneur has no wage work experience the results are extremely robust toward more flexible specifications including fixed effect estimations dealing with unobserved heterogeneity furthermore the interaction term is negligible for non entrepreneurs suggesting that the complementarity between wage work experience and schooling is a distinctive characteristic of entrepreneurs

upstream pollution downstream waste disposal and the design of comprehensive environmental policies abstract many policymakers are shifting their focus from media specific pollution problems to product specific life cycle environmental problems in this paper we develop a model of production and consumption that incorporates life cycle externalities and use it to solve for alternative policies to achieve a social optimum in general we find that no single instrument can solve multiple problems contrary to what some observers have suggested however we find that there are alternative ways of reaching the social optimum we also discover that an integrated approach to policy appears to be important no matter what policy options are adopted and finally we find that there is only a limited role for so called product life cycle assessments

a comparison of public policies for lead recycling policies that encourage recycling may be used to reduce environmental costs from waste disposal because direct restrictions on disposal are difficult to enforce four recycling policies have been advanced i taxes on the use of virgin materials ii deposit refund programs iii subsidies to recycled material production and iv recycled content standards in this article i analyze the structure of these policies and their cost effectiveness in achieving reductions in disposal i then examine the policies in the empirical context of the recycling of lead from automobile batteries in order to calculate the effects of recycling programs i estimate the elasticities for primary and secondary lead supply and demand my results suggest that price based policy mechanisms can be successful in increasing lead recovery and that the difference in efficiency between the four approaches is similar

interindustry wage differentials in brazil why workers who have seemingly identical characteristics receive different wages has been a recurrent problem in labor economics and has received much attention lately in the debate on the efficiency wage models ewms in this article we extend this line of research to a less developed economy by testing the existence of interindustry wage differentials in brazilian industries the empirical analysis is based on cross sectional data on individuals working in the manufacturing industry in sao paulo one of the greater industrial areas in brazil the brazilian case shows a number of similarities to previous studies as there is a significant and stable pattern of interindustry wage differentials however it also raises additional issues namely a relationship between technology and wages that extends beyond the size effect as well as the similarities of the wage structure across countries even when workers characteristics are controlled the results have also proven to be quite robust to methodological estimation issues that is changes in the control variables and full correction for the least squares sampling error

returns to schooling in self employment abstract this paper challenges the idea that returns to schooling in self employment are similar to those in wage work by establishing a non linear relationship with very low returns for most educational levels in self employment we conclude that previous log linear specifications in the self employment literature have missed significant variation in the true relationship between education and earnings

differences in wage levels among metropolitan areas less educated workers in the united states easton t and king m c 2000 differences in wage levels among metropolitan areas less educated workers in the united states reg studies 34 21 27 this work investigates the causes of low wages for workers with a high school education or less in the us using a sample of 241 metropolitan areas drawn from the 1990 census it examines the influence of five labour market characteristics on between metropolitan area wage differences labour demand the minimum wage unionization industry mix and the race gender composition of the labour force the first four factors seem to affect both men s and women s wages but the relative importance differs for example the evidence suggests that unionization is the most important influence on men s wages while for women industry mix matters most easton t et king m c 2000 des ecarts de salaire dans les zones metropolitaines les salaries moins instruits aux etats unis reg studies 34 21 27 a partir d un echantillon de 241 zones metropolitaines tirees du

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

greenhouse gas emissions waste and recycling policy abstract this paper examines least cost policies for waste reduction incorporating upstream greenhouse gas externalities associated with the production of consumption goods from various materials in particular we decompose the effect of deposit refund advance disposal fees and recycling subsidies on upstream greenhouse gas emissions we find that the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions are of the same order as or larger than the benefits of reducing solid waste disposal implying larger optimal total waste reduction than previous studies furthermore the least cost intervention levels will be material specific and vary substantially across materials finally despite the reductions in emissions implied by increased recycling rates direct recycling subsidies are more costly and generate less emissions reductions than a deposit refund or advance disposal fee

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

what is different about urbanization in rich and poor countries cities in brazil china india and the united states abstract are the well known facts about urbanization in the united states also true for the developing world we compare american metropolitan areas with analogous geographic units in brazil china and india both gibrat s law and zipf s law seem to hold as well in brazil as in the u s but china and india look quite different in brazil and china the implications of the spatial equilibrium hypothesis the central organizing idea of urban economics are not rejected the india data however repeatedly rejects tests inspired by the spatial equilibrium assumption one hypothesis is that spatial equilibrium only emerges with economic development as markets replace social relationships and as human capital spreads more widely in all four countries there is strong evidence of agglomeration economies and human capital externalities the correlation between density and earnings is stronger in both china and india than in the u s strongest in china in india the gap between urban and rural wages is huge but the correlation between city size and earnings is more modest the cross sectional relationship between area level skills and both earnings and area level growth are also stronger in the developing world than in the u s the forces that drive urban success seem similar in the rich and poor world even if limited migration and difficult housing markets make it harder for a spatial equilibrium to develop

efficient waste management policies and strategic behavior with open borders during the last decade waste management has been characterized by two main trends the growth of international trade of waste materials and the introduction of extended producer responsibility epr as a policy instrument in this paper a two country stylized model with imperfect competition in the recycling market is used to address two research questions first how do epr recycling targets interact with other policy instruments such as taxes on recycling residues and excise duties second how does strategic behavior of national policy makers influences the use of policy instruments the model demonstrates that a combination of epr with other instruments is needed to achieve the first best outcome when governments do not coordinate policies across borders strategic behavior may lead to a race to the bottom for taxes on recycling residues conversely strategic behavior may lead to a counter intuitive race to the top for excise duties and epr recycling targets it is shown that these instruments are not only used to stimulate waste prevention but also to extract rents from foreign recyclers

urban attributes and wage disparities in brazil a multilevel hierarchical model fontes g g simoes r f and hermeto camilo de oliveira a m urban attributes and wage disparities in brazil a multilevel hierarchical model regional studies this paper examines the effects of urban scale and productive structure on individual wage levels in brazilian cities and metropolitan areas in 1990 and 2000 the estimation through hierarchical linear models enabled the inclusion of variables in different levels individual and urban and the decomposition of total wage variance the results showed significant and huge wage disparities among workers who share similar personal attributes but live in different regions of the country in addition the disparities persisted from 1990 to 2000 finally the results provided evidence that local economic and labour market factors played an important role in wage determination

urbanization in a developing country city size and population composition abstract in developing countries typically there is a very high correlation between city size and educational attainment of the local population which is less pronounced or even absent in developed countries such as canada the u s a or the u k two explanations are examined first the types of goods produced in larger cities require relatively high skill labor inputs second public and perhaps private services demanded by higher skill people are only offered in larger cities the paper econometrically tests these hypotheses for brazil estimating the elasticities of substitution or typically complementarity between high and low skill labor and the bright lights effect for high versus low skill labor

ranking unemployment duration and wages it explores the implication of one central assumption when firms receive multiple acceptable applications they hire the worker who has been unemployed for the least amount of time this assumption ranking is contrasted with the assumption of random hiring no ranking by embodying this assumption in a model of the labour market with job creation destruction and matching the joint behaviour of unemployment the distribution of unemployment durations and wages are characterized the implication that the re employment prospects of employed workers were they to become unemployed are better than those of the currently unemployed appears to have been an important feature of european unemployment experience in the 1980 s this paper examines the effects of the composition of unemployment on wage determination it explores one central assumption when firms receive multiple acceptable applications they hire the worker who has been unemployed for the least amount of time we refer to this assumption as ranking and contrast it throughout to the assumption of random hiring or no ranking by embodying this assumption in a model of the labour market with job creation destruction and matching we characterize the joint behaviour of unemployment the distribution of unemployment durations and wages ranking has a number of important implications first in addition to the obvious result that the exit rate from unemployment is a decreasing function of duration we show that the effect of duration is stronger the higher the rate of unemployment second with the wage depending on the distributions of prospective unemployment durations the presence of long term unemployed per se has little effect on wages third looking at the relation between the wage and the aggregate level of unemployment and comparing ranking to the case of no ranking the wage moves less with the level of unemployment but more with the change in unemployment put simply ranking and no ranking models show exactly the same aggregate unemployment slightly different long run responses of wages to unemployment and sharply different wage dynamics the paper is organized as follows section i characterizes the matching process and derives a matching function based on an urn ball process with vacancies as urns and applications by unemployed workers as balls thus the distribution of applications per vacancy depends on aggregate unemployment and vacancies vacancies with at least one acceptable application are filled when a vacancy receives more than one acceptable application firms use a rule to choose among applicants thus the rule determines who is hired but does not affect the number of hires section ii uses this matching function in a model of the labour market with continual job creation and destruction and characterizes the equilibrium values of unemployment vacancies and hires

application of the distance function to nonmarket valuation of environmental goods and services an illustrative example abstract this paper develops and implements a unique formulation of a household production model in that technology is characterized as a distance function the properties of the distance function allow for the derivation of shadow prices for the inputs and outputs associated with household production which can be applied to the problem of valuing nonmarket goods or activities the approach requires only one input to or output of household production to bear a price the derivation of shadow prices for all other household inputs outputs follows from the properties of the distance function i demonstrate the approach using data on the waste management activities of a sample of households from marietta georgia and by calculating shadow prices for the nonmarket activity of recycling

two generalizations of a deposit refund system this paper suggests two generalizations of the deposit refund idea in the first we apply the idea not just to solid waste materials but to any waste from production or consumption including wastes that may be solid gaseous or liquid using a simple general equilibrium model we derive the optimal combination of a tax on a purchased commodity and subsidy to a clean activity such as emission abatement recycling or disposal in a sanitary landfill this two part instrument is equivalent to a pigovian tax on the dirty activity such as emissions dumping or litter in the second generalization we consider the case where government must use distorting taxes on labor and capital incomes to help meet the revenue requirement would the optimal deposit be raised and the refund reduced we derive the second best revenue raising drs or two part instrument to answer that question this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item