Description
Book SynopsisThe market for residential solid waste management and disposal has experienced dramatic changes over the past 20 years. This collection of outstanding published research examines these changes and thoroughly analyzes the strategies popularized by municipal governments over the past two decades.
Kerbside recycling, unheard of in the 1970s, is currently available to 46% of Americans. Thousands of towns across the nation have also implemented user fees requiring households to pay a fee for every bag of garbage they generate. These policy shifts have attracted the attention of environmental economists interested in knowing the best strategy for managing solid waste. The editors, both long-time scholars of these trends, offer theoretical solutions for the optimal pricing of garbage and recycling collection. They provide original data collection and suggest appropriate econometric techniques that correct for statistical biases. A policy focus provides information relevant to municipal governments as well as researchers.
This excellent volume will be useful for policymakers, students and scholars in environmental economics.
Trade Review'This is a wide-ranging, careful use of economic analysis to shed light on an important environmental problem. Its value stems not only from its contribution to the specific policy issue it addresses, but also as a broader illustration of how good economic research can inform policy. Readers will be rewarded with a host of intriguing (and sometimes provocative) new insights.' -- From the foreword by Tom Tietenberg, Colby College, US
Table of ContentsContents: Foreword by Tom Tietenberg 1. The Economics of Residential Solid Waste Management 2. Garbage, Recycling, and Illicit Burning or Dumping 3. How a Fee Per-Unit Garbage Affects Aggregate Recycling in a Model with Heterogeneous Households 4. Household Responses to Pricing Garbage by the Bag 5. Policies for Green Design 6. Garbage and Recycling with Endogenous Local Policy 7. Explaining Household Demand for the Collection of Solid Waste and Recycling 8. Explaining the Growth in Municipal Recycling Programs: The Role of Market and Nonmarket Factors 9. Environmental Levies and Distortionary Taxation: Comment 10. The Case for a Two-Part Instrument: Presumptive Tax and Environmental Subsidy Index
