How Does Social Capital Affect Residents’ Waste-Separation Behavior? Evidence from China
Yexin Zhou,
Hongke Song,
Xiaopei Huang,
Hao Chen and
Wei Wei
Additional contact information
Hongke Song: School of Economics and Management, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010021, China
Xiaopei Huang: School of Economics and Resource Management, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Hao Chen: School of Economics and Resource Management, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Wei Wei: Management Academy of China Cooperatives, Beijing 100028, China
IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 6, 1-21
Abstract:
The increasing amount of waste produced has been a challenge for human health and the environment, causing a call for effective waste management measures in which household waste separation is of great significance. Although an expanding body of literature has examined the impact of social capital on individual waste-separation behavior, few studies have explicitly discussed the endogeneity problem and the influence mechanisms. Accordingly, our study investigates the effect of social capital on waste-separation behavior and corresponding mechanisms using a national survey dataset of China. The study also reveals the heterogeneity of the influence of individual characteristics on waste-separation behavior. Our results demonstrate that social capital casts a significant positive impact on waste-separation behavior, providing opportunities for individuals’ social learning and strengthening the reputation effect. The heterogeneous effects of social capital reveal that women, higher-educated individuals, and political party members present better waste-separation behavior. Besides, the impact of social capital varies between urban and rural areas and among different age groups. Our study provides empirical evidence for policy making of household waste-separation management in developing countries from the perspective of informal institutions.
Keywords: social capital; waste separation; informal institution; social learning; reputation effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/6/3469/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/6/3469/ (text/html)
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:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:6:p:3469-:d:771654
Access Statistics for this article
IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu
More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().