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Income effects and the inconvenience of private provision of public goods for bads: The case of recycling in Finland

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  • Huhtala, Anni

Abstract

Absent or weak income effects reported in many contingent valuation studies have cast doubt on the reliability of the survey method. We find that the income effect depends on the type of public good in question: there is a negative income effect for willingness to pay for recycling, which requires time and effort for sorting, but a positive effect for the more convenient incineration. Hence, high-income (low-income) individuals may display less (more) effort on environmental behavior. This stresses the importance of comprehensive distributional analyses when assessing alternative environmental policies.

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  • Huhtala, Anni, 2010. "Income effects and the inconvenience of private provision of public goods for bads: The case of recycling in Finland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 1675-1681, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:69:y:2010:i:8:p:1675-1681
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    Cited by:

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    2. Wolfram Berger & Yoko Nagase, 2018. "Waste management regulation: policy solutions and policy shortcomings," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 65(3), pages 205-223, July.
    3. Czajkowski, Mikołaj & Kądziela, Tadeusz & Hanley, Nick, 2014. "We want to sort! Assessing households’ preferences for sorting waste," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 290-306.
    4. Ellen Sterk, 2023. "Willingness to pay for recycled aggregates in concrete among German construction clients," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202311, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    5. Lee, Misuk & Choi, Hyunhong & Koo, Yoonmo, 2017. "Inconvenience cost of waste disposal behavior in South Korea," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 58-65.
    6. Katarzyna Zagórska, 2016. "Impact of local and national social norm information on respondents’ choices regarding waste sorting at household level," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 44.
    7. Viktorija Grigaliūnaitė & Aušra Pažėraitė & Mantautas Račkauskas, 2023. "Save Myself or Others? The Influence of Attitude toward FMCG Products from Recycled Material on the Intention to Buy Them: Hidden Motives and the Role of Income," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-17, July.
    8. Dupoux, Marion & Martinet, Vincent, 2022. "Could the environment be a normal good for you and an inferior good for me? A theory of context-dependent substitutability and needs," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    9. repec:sss:wpaper:201403 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Nainggolan, Doan & Pedersen, Anders Branth & Smed, Sinne & Zemo, Kahsay Haile & Hasler, Berit & Termansen, Mette, 2019. "Consumers in a Circular Economy: Economic Analysis of Household Waste Sorting Behaviour," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 1-1.
    11. Hang Yin & Yixiong Huang & Kuiming Wang, 2021. "How Do Environmental Concerns and Governance Performance Affect Public Environmental Participation: A Case Study of Waste Sorting in Urban China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-16, September.

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