The Organization of Local Solid Waste and Recycling Markets: Public and Private Provision of Services

Molly Macauley, Margaret Walls and Soren Anderson

RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future

Abstract: We study determinants of market organization of local public services by an empiricalexamination of one of the most visible municipal services, residential waste management. Usinga multinomial logit model and data for 1,000 U.S. communities, we explore the effect of politicalinfluence, voter ideology, environmental constraints, production costs (i.e., “economies ofdensity†), and contracting transaction costs on a community’s choice of market arrangement forwaste collection and recycling. We find that cost factors are a significant determinant of servicedelivery method. In contrast, few of the political variables are statistically significant. Theseresults hold for our models of both waste and recycling, lending further evidence to theconclusion that local governments emphasize costs when choosing between private and publicprovision.

Keywords: Market organization; solid waste management; state and local government (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H70 Q20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-05-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Working Paper: The Organization of Local Solid Waste and Recycling Markets: Public and Private Provision of Services (2003)
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