Informal recycling and social preferences: Evidence from household survey data in Vietnam

Hide-Fumi Yokoo, Kosuke Kawai and Yuki Higuchi

Resource and Energy Economics, 2018, vol. 54, issue C, 109-124

Abstract: This study examines the association between social preferences and recycling behavior in a developing country. A conceptual framework that modifies the impure altruism model with heterogeneous preferences and further incorporates the impure public good model is presented to study informal recycling behaviors. Based on survey data collected from 755 households in Hanoi, Vietnam, we find that the majority of sample households recycle all the recyclable materials they consume even though such recycling is not obligatory. Half the recycling households sell their recyclables to informal junk buyers, whereas the other half provide recyclables without monetary compensation. Our finding of voluntary recycling implies that a certain proportion of households have a positive marginal willingness to pay for an increase in the environmental public good. The results of the regression analyses show that recycling behavior is associated with altruism, as measured by a modified version of the self-report altruism scale. Among high-income households, recycling behavior is associated with inequality aversion, as elicited from a hypothetical game. These findings suggest that social preferences are important determinants of the private provision of public goods through the informal sector in a developing country.

Keywords: Altruism; Household recycling; Inequality aversion; Informal sector; Private provision of a public good; Solid waste (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0928765517304086
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:resene:v:54:y:2018:i:c:p:109-124

DOI: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2018.08.001

Access Statistics for this article

Resource and Energy Economics is currently edited by J. F. Shogren and S. Smulders

More articles in Resource and Energy Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().