Behavioral spillovers from food-waste collection in Swedish municipalities

Claes Ek and Jurate Miliute-Plepiene

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2018, vol. 89, issue C, 168-186

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.

Keywords: Environmental behavior; Recycling; Behavioral spillovers; Food waste; Packaging waste (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D04 D12 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:89:y:2018:i:c:p:168-186

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2018.01.004

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