Behavioral spillovers from food-waste collection in Swedish municipalities
(2018) In Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 89. p.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,... (More)
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.
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- author
- Ek, Claes LU and Miliute-Plepiene, Jurate LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2018-05-01
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Behavioral spillovers, Environmental behavior, Food waste, Packaging waste, Recycling
- in
- Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
- volume
- 89
- pages
- 19 pages
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85046110322
- ISSN
- 0095-0696
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jeem.2018.01.004
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- afd793fa-7c2e-4582-9f41-689bd0b38073
- date added to LUP
- 2018-05-07 14:52:15
- date last changed
- 2022-04-17 20:27:47
@article{afd793fa-7c2e-4582-9f41-689bd0b38073, abstract = {{<p>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.</p>}}, author = {{Ek, Claes and Miliute-Plepiene, Jurate}}, issn = {{0095-0696}}, keywords = {{Behavioral spillovers; Environmental behavior; Food waste; Packaging waste; Recycling}}, language = {{eng}}, month = {{05}}, pages = {{168--186}}, publisher = {{Elsevier}}, series = {{Journal of Environmental Economics and Management}}, title = {{Behavioral spillovers from food-waste collection in Swedish municipalities}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2018.01.004}}, doi = {{10.1016/j.jeem.2018.01.004}}, volume = {{89}}, year = {{2018}}, }