IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ntj/journl/v63y2010i2p237-51.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal Solid Waste Tax Policy With Centralized Recycling

Author

Listed:
  • Kinnaman, Thomas C.

Abstract

Economic models have demonstrated the efficiency of curbside collection taxes. This paper demonstrates that such efficiencies disappear in economies with centralized recycling options — where recyclable materials can be removed from the waste stream either by households or at a centralized recycling facility. In such economies, a curbside garbage tax not only fails to encourage the centralized recycler to internalize the external costs of waste disposal, but introduces inefficiencies to the costminimizing mix of household and centralized recycling efforts. The optimal waste policy is a tax assessed further downstream at the landfill rather than at the curb.

Suggested Citation

  • Kinnaman, Thomas C., 2010. "Optimal Solid Waste Tax Policy With Centralized Recycling," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 63(2), pages 237-251, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ntj:journl:v:63:y:2010:i:2:p:237-51
    DOI: 10.17310/ntj.2010.2.03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2010.2.03
    Download Restriction: Access is restricted to subscribers and members of the National Tax Association.
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2010.2.03
    Download Restriction: Access is restricted to subscribers and members of the National Tax Association.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17310/ntj.2010.2.03?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas C. Kinnaman, 2006. "Policy Watch: Examining the Justification for Residential Recycling," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 219-232, Fall.
    2. Don Fullerton & Thomas C. Kinnaman, 2002. "Household Responses to Pricing Garbage by the Bag," Chapters, in: Don Fullerton & Thomas C. Kinnaman (ed.), The Economics of Household Garbage and Recycling Behavior, chapter 4, pages 88-101, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Don Fullerton & Thomas C. Kinnaman, 2002. "Garbage, Recycling, and Illicit Burning or Dumping," Chapters, in: Don Fullerton & Thomas C. Kinnaman (ed.), The Economics of Household Garbage and Recycling Behavior, chapter 2, pages 49-62, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Paul Isely & Aaron Lowen, 2007. "Price And Substitution In Residential Solid Waste," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 25(3), pages 433-443, July.
    5. Geum-Soo Kim & Young-Jae Chang & David Kelleher, 2008. "Unit pricing of municipal solid waste and illegal dumping: an empirical analysis of Korean experience," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 9(3), pages 167-176, September.
    6. Ian M. Dobbs, 1991. "Litter and Waste Management: Disposal Taxes versus User Charges," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 24(1), pages 221-227, February.
    7. Baumol,William J. & Oates,Wallace E., 1988. "The Theory of Environmental Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521322249.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Antonio Garofalo & Rosalia Castellano & Massimiliano Agovino & Gennaro Punzo & Gaetano Musella, 2019. "How Far is Campania from the Best-Performing Region in Italy? A Territorial-Divide Analysis of Separate Waste Collection," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(2), pages 667-688, April.
    2. Elena C. Prenovitz & Peter K. Hazlett & Chandler S. Reilly, 2023. "Can Markets Improve Recycling Performance? A Cross-Country Regression Analysis and Case Studies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-18, March.
    3. Houévoh Amandine R. Gnonlonfin, 2016. "An evaluation of French municipal solid waste pricing system," Working Papers 2016.18, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    4. Massimiliano Agovino & Maria Ferrara & Katia Marchesano & Antonio Garofalo, 2020. "The separate collection of recyclable waste materials as a flywheel for the circular economy: the role of institutional quality and socio-economic factors," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 37(2), pages 659-681, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tobias Erhardt, 2019. "Garbage In and Garbage Out? On Waste Havens in Switzerland," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(1), pages 251-282, May.
    2. Don Fullerton & Wenbo Wu, 2002. "Policies for Green Design," Chapters, in: Don Fullerton & Thomas C. Kinnaman (ed.), The Economics of Household Garbage and Recycling Behavior, chapter 5, pages 102-119, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Acuff, Kaylee & Kaffine, Daniel T., 2013. "Greenhouse gas emissions, waste and recycling policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 74-86.
    4. Thomas C. Kinnaman & Don Fullerton, 2002. "The Economics of Residential Solid Waste Management," Chapters, in: Don Fullerton & Thomas C. Kinnaman (ed.), The Economics of Household Garbage and Recycling Behavior, chapter 1, pages 1-48, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Leonzio Rizzo & Riccardo Secomandi, 2020. "Pay as you throw: evidence on the incentive to recycle," Working papers 88, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    6. Pfister, Naomi & Mathys, Nicole A., 2022. "Waste taxes at work: Evidence from the canton of Vaud in Switzerland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    7. Dijkgraaf, Elbert & Gradus, Raymond, 2009. "Environmental activism and dynamics of unit-based pricing systems," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 13-23, January.
    8. Heller, Marit H. & Vatn, Arild, 2017. "The divisive and disruptive effect of a weight-based waste fee," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 275-285.
    9. Valente, Marica, 2023. "Policy evaluation of waste pricing programs using heterogeneous causal effect estimation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    10. Ankinée Kirakozian, 2016. "One Without The Other? Behavioural And Incentive Policies For Household Waste Management," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 526-551, July.
    11. D'Amato, Alessio & Mazzanti, Massimiliano & Nicolli, Francesco & Zoli, Mariangela, 2018. "Illegal waste disposal: Enforcement actions and decentralized environmental policy," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 56-65.
    12. James Alm & H. Spencer Banzhaf, 2012. "Designing Economic Instruments For The Environment In A Decentralized Fiscal System," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 177-202, April.
    13. Ferrara, Ida & Missios, Paul, 2011. "A Cross-Country Study of Household Waste Prevention and Recycling: Assessing the Effective of Policy Instruments," MPRA Paper 70811, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Helfand, Gloria E. & Berck, Peter & Maull, Tim, 2003. "The theory of pollution policy," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 249-303, Elsevier.
    15. Choe, Chongwoo & Fraser, Iain, 1999. "An Economic Analysis of Household Waste Management," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 234-246, September.
    16. Germà Bel & Raymond Gradus, 2014. "“Effects of unit-based pricing on the waste collection demand: a meta-regression analysis”," IREA Working Papers 201420, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Jun 2014.
    17. Carattini, Stefano & Baranzini, Andrea & Lalive, Rafael, 2018. "Is Taxing Waste a Waste of Time? Evidence from a Supreme Court Decision," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 131-151.
    18. Hilary Sigman, 2003. "Taxing Hazardous Waste: The U.S. Experience," Departmental Working Papers 200306, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    19. Paul Missios & Ida Ferrara, 2011. "A Cross-Country Study of Waste Prevention and Recycling," Working Papers 028, Ryerson University, Department of Economics.
    20. van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2008. "Environmental regulation of households: An empirical review of economic and psychological factors," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 559-574, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ntj:journl:v:63:y:2010:i:2:p:237-51. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: The University of Chicago Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ntanet.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.