[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v101y2011i3p60-64.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Bottle Laws on Income: New Empirical Results

Author

Listed:
  • Bevin Ashenmiller
Abstract
Eleven US states have "bottle laws," deposit-refund programs that combine a consumption tax with a recycling rebate. When states set the bottle deposit low enough it becomes a tax on high wage earners, for whom the opportunity cost of their time prevents them from returning containers for their deposit. However, this bottle deposit will still be high enough that harvesting recyclables provides employment for low wage earners. Using individual data on observed cash recycling behavior, this paper shows that an unintended consequence of bottle laws is that they have the potential to increase the incomes of very low wage workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Bevin Ashenmiller, 2011. "The Effect of Bottle Laws on Income: New Empirical Results," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 60-64, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:3:p:60-64
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.3.60
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Don Fullerton & Thomas C. Kinnaman, 2002. "Household Responses to Pricing Garbage by the Bag," Chapters, in: Don Fullerton & Thomas C. Kinnaman (ed.), The Economics of Household Garbage and Recycling Behavior, chapter 4, pages 88-101, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Bevin Ashenmiller, 2010. "Externalities from Recycling Laws: Evidence from Crime Rates," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 12(1), pages 245-261.
    3. West, Sarah E. & Williams, R.C.Roberton III, 2004. "Estimates from a consumer demand system: implications for the incidence of environmental taxes," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 535-558, May.
    4. Bevin Ashenmiller, 2009. "Cash Recycling, Waste Disposal Costs, and the Incomes of the Working Poor: Evidence from California," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 85(3), pages 539-551.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Struk, Michal, 2017. "Distance and incentives matter: The separation of recyclable municipal waste," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 155-162.
    2. Rebecca L. C. Taylor, 2020. "A Mixed Bag: The Hidden Time Costs of Regulating Consumer Behavior," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(2), pages 345-378.
    3. Brian Chi-ang Lin & Siqi Zheng & Marie Briguglio, 2016. "Household Cooperation In Waste Management: Initial Conditions And Intervention," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 497-525, July.
    4. Diane Holt & David Littlewood, 2017. "Waste Livelihoods Amongst the Poor – Through the Lens of Bricolage," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 253-264, February.
    5. Phu Nguyen-Van & Anne Stenger & Tuyen Tiet, 2021. "Social incentive factors in interventions promoting sustainable behaviors: A meta-analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-27, December.
    6. Viscusi, W. Kip & Huber, Joel & Bell, Jason, 2023. "Changes in household recycling behavior: Evidence from panel data," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    7. Phu Nguyen-Van & Anne Stenger & Tuyen Tiet, 2021. "Social incentive factors in interventions promoting sustainable behaviors," Post-Print hal-03472060, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Viscusi, W. Kip & Huber, Joel & Bell, Jason, 2023. "Changes in household recycling behavior: Evidence from panel data," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    2. Acuff, Kaylee & Kaffine, Daniel T., 2013. "Greenhouse gas emissions, waste and recycling policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 74-86.
    3. W. Kip Viscusi & Joel Huber & Jason Bell, 2011. "Promoting Recycling: Private Values, Social Norms, and Economic Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 65-70, May.
    4. Berck, Peter & Sears, Molly & Taylor, Rebecca L.C. & Trachtman, Carly & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2024. "Reduce, reuse, redeem: Deposit-refund recycling programs in the presence of alternatives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    5. Maarten A. Allers & Corine Hoeben, 2010. "Effects of Unit-Based Garbage Pricing: A Differences-in-Differences Approach," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 45(3), pages 405-428, March.
    6. Romero-Jordán, Desiderio & del Río, Pablo & Peñasco, Cristina, 2016. "An analysis of the welfare and distributive implications of factors influencing household electricity consumption," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 361-370.
    7. Jenkins, Robin R. & Martinez, Salvador A. & Palmer, Karen & Podolsky, Michael J., 2003. "The determinants of household recycling: a material-specific analysis of recycling program features and unit pricing," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 294-318, March.
    8. Stavins, Robert, 2001. "Lessons From the American Experiment With Market-Based Environmental Policies," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-53, Resources for the Future.
    9. Palmer, Karen & Sigman, Hilary & Walls, Margaret, 1997. "The Cost of Reducing Municipal Solid Waste," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 128-150, June.
    10. Essi Eerola & Anni Huhtala, 2008. "Voting for Environmental Policy Under Income and Preference Heterogeneity," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(1), pages 256-266.
    11. Degli Antoni, Giacomo & Vittucci Marzetti, Giuseppe, 2019. "Recycling and Waste Generation: An Estimate of the Source Reduction Effect of Recycling Programs," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 321-329.
    12. Julie Anne Cronin & Don Fullerton & Steven Sexton, 2019. "Vertical and Horizontal Redistributions from a Carbon Tax and Rebate," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(S1), pages 169-208.
    13. Elena C. Prenovitz & Peter K. Hazlett & Chandler S. Reilly, 2023. "Can Markets Improve Recycling Performance? A Cross-Country Regression Analysis and Case Studies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-18, March.
    14. Broberg, Thomas, 2014. "Relative income and the WTP for public goods - A case study of forest conservation in Sweden," CERE Working Papers 2014:6, CERE - the Center for Environmental and Resource Economics.
    15. Douenne, Thomas & Fabre, Adrien, 2020. "French attitudes on climate change, carbon taxation and other climate policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    16. Kverndokk, Snorre & Rose, Adam, 2008. "Equity and Justice in Global Warming Policy," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 2(2), pages 135-176, October.
    17. Spiller, Elisheba & Stephens, Heather M., 2012. "The Heterogeneous Effects of Gasoline Taxes: Why Where We Live Matters," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-30, Resources for the Future.
    18. Tobias Erhardt, 2019. "Garbage In and Garbage Out? On Waste Havens in Switzerland," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(1), pages 251-282, May.
    19. Jorge Alberto Rosas Flores & David Morillón Gálvez & Rodolfo Silva, 2024. "Effects of Removing Energy Subsidies and Implementing Carbon Taxes on Urban, Rural and Gender Welfare: Evidence from Mexico," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-17, May.
    20. Levinson, Arik, 1999. "NIMBY taxes matter: the case of state hazardous waste disposal taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 31-51, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:3:p:60-64. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.