The Costs and Environmental Justice Concerns of NIMBY in Solid Waste Disposal

Phuong Ho

No v8wfg, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Many recent US Congresses have proposed bills that allow state and local governments to restrict interjurisdictional waste shipments. Using data on intercounty waste flows in California and a random utility model of haulers' decisions about where to deposit waste from each county, this paper studies the economic costs of import bans and import taxes and the implications on the distribution of waste disposal by race (and ethnicity). I find NIMBY-motivated laws would reduce intercounty waste transport at substantial economic costs. Furthermore, a NIMBY law enacted in a county, despite reducing the county's imports, could increase total intercounty waste in the whole state, generating additional external costs of transportation. A universal import ban in all counties would reduce transboundary waste but it would lead to substitution of waste away from facilities near white residents and toward facilities near Hispanic residents, exacerbating distributional concerns.

Date: 2022-10-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-upt
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:v8wfg

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/v8wfg

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