Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
7361320 | Journal of Environmental Economics and Management | 2018 | 48 Pages |
Abstract
We estimate behavioral spillovers from environmental policy within the context of a natural experiment on food waste in Sweden. Exploiting the staggered implementation of food-waste collection across Swedish municipalities, we use a difference-in-difference design to measure the causal effect of introducing such collection on another pro-environmental behavior, namely the sorting of packaging waste. Results suggest a positive spillover effect on packaging waste which corresponds to 5-10% of the population average and rises gradually over time, possibly due to slow implementation of food-waste collection in many municipalities. These estimates are unconfounded with a number of shifts in the waste-related incentives facing households, e.g. introduction of curbside collection of packaging waste from single-family homes. Although we are unable to directly account for all such factors, indirect robustness tests provide no compelling evidence that estimated spillovers are spurious.
Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities
Economics, Econometrics and Finance
Economics and Econometrics
Authors
Claes Ek, Jurate Miliute-Plepiene,