IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea15/204783.html

Bans versus Fees: Disposable Carryout Bag Policies and Bag Usage

Author

Listed:
  • Taylor, Rebecca
  • Villas-Boas, Sofia B.

Abstract

Using observational data on consumer carryout bag usage, we measure the effects of Disposable Bag Policies on bag demand. Our results show that plastic bag bans with paper bag fees eliminate use of disposable plastic bags and increase use of reusable bags. However, we find significant and undesired increases in paper bag demand. We compare our results to a study on bag fees and conclude the types of bags stores choose to sell in lieu of disposable plastic bags, as well as the price of alternatives, impact whether bans are more successful than fees in discouraging disposable bag demand.

Suggested Citation

  • Taylor, Rebecca & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2015. "Bans versus Fees: Disposable Carryout Bag Policies and Bag Usage," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 204783, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea15:204783
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.204783
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/204783/files/BagBansVersusBagFees_AAEA2015.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.204783?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:pri:indrel:dsp014q77fr47j/3/575 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Martin L. Weitzman, 1974. "Prices vs. Quantities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(4), pages 477-491.
    3. Vidar Christiansen & Stephen Smith, 2012. "Externality‐Correcting Taxes and Regulation," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(2), pages 358-383, June.
    4. Oates, Wallace E & Portney, Paul R & McGartland, Albert M, 1989. "The Net Benefits of Incentive-Based Regulation: A Case Study of Environmental Standard Setting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1233-1242, December.
    5. Johane Dikgang & Anthony Leiman & Martine Visser, 2012. "Elasticity of demand, price and time: lessons from South Africa's plastic-bag levy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(26), pages 3339-3342, September.
    6. repec:pri:indrel:dsp014q77fr47j/3/575.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Jérôme Adda & Francesca Cornaglia, 2010. "The Effect of Bans and Taxes on Passive Smoking," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 1-32, January.
    8. Tatiana A. Homonoff, 2013. "Can Small Incentives Have Large Effects? The Impact of Taxes versus Bonuses on Disposable Bag Use," Working Papers 1483, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    9. Jérôme Adda & Francesca Cornaglia, 2010. "Passive smoking: the effect of bans and taxes," CentrePiece - The magazine for economic performance 315, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. repec:aen:journl:1990v11-03-a02 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Frank Convery & Simon McDonnell & Susana Ferreira, 2007. "The most popular tax in Europe? Lessons from the Irish plastic bags levy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 38(1), pages 1-11, September.
    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. Chenlu Ouyang & Huiqi Jiang & Qing Sheng & Guannan Liu & Minghui Jiang, 2022. "Tripartite Evolutionary Game Analysis for Plastic Pollution Prevention and Control under the Background of China’s Plastic Ban," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-22, February.
    2. Bishal Bharadwaj, 2016. "Plastic Bag Ban in Nepal: Enforcement and Effectiveness," Working Papers id:11548, eSocialSciences.

    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. Rebecca L. Taylor & Sofia B. Villas-Boas, 2016. "Bans vs. Fees: Disposable Carryout Bag Policies and Bag Usage," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 38(2), pages 351-372.
    2. Rebecca L. C. Taylor, 2020. "A Mixed Bag: The Hidden Time Costs of Regulating Consumer Behavior," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(2), pages 345-378.
    3. Cabrera, José María & Caffera, Marcelo & Cid, Alejandro, 2020. "Small Incentives May Have Large Effects: The Impact of Prices on the Demand for Plastic Bags," MPRA Paper 100178, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Tatiana A. Homonoff, 2018. "Can Small Incentives Have Large Effects? The Impact of Taxes versus Bonuses on Disposable Bag Use," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 177-210, November.
    5. Abel Brodeur, 2012. "Smoking, Income and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Smoking Bans," Working Papers halshs-00664269, HAL.
    6. Odermatt, Reto & Stutzer, Alois, 2018. "Tobacco Control Policies and Smoking Behavior in Europe: More Than Trends?," Working papers 2018/24, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    7. Aline Bütikofer & René Karadakic & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2021. "Income Inequality and Mortality: A Norwegian Perspective," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(1), pages 193-221, March.
    8. Anger, Silke & Kvasnicka, Michael & Siedler, Thomas, 2011. "One Last Puff? Public Smoking Bans and Smoking Behavior," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 30(3), pages 591-601.
    9. Andrew M. Jones & Audrey Laporte & Nigel Rice & Eugenio Zucchelli, 2019. "Dynamic panel data estimation of an integrated Grossman and Becker–Murphy model of health and addiction," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 703-733, February.
    10. Bairong Wang & Yuhua Zhao & Yong Li, 2021. "How Do Tougher Plastics Ban Policies Modify People’s Usage of Plastic Bags? A Case Study in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(20), pages 1-8, October.
    11. Esteban Petruzzello, 2019. "Measuring the Effect of Policy on the Demand for Menthol Cigarettes: Evidence from Household-Level Purchase Data," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 422-445, June.
    12. Daniel Kuehnle & Christoph Wunder, 2017. "The Effects of Smoking Bans on Self‐Assessed Health: Evidence from Germany," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 321-337, March.
    13. repec:ejw:journl:v:15:y:2018:i:2:p:129-157 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Mr. Michael Keen, 2011. "The Taxation and Regulation of Banks," IMF Working Papers 2011/206, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Colombo, Luca & Galmarini, Umberto, 2023. "Taxation and anti-smoking campaigns: Complementary policies in tobacco control," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 31-57.
    16. Cropper, Maureen L & Oates, Wallace E, 1992. "Environmental Economics: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 675-740, June.
    17. Christian Bünnings, 2017. "Does new health information affect health behaviour? The effect of health events on smoking cessation," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(10), pages 987-1000, February.
    18. Faiz Ur Rehman & Muhammad Nasir, 2018. "In the Same Boat, but not Equals: The Heterogeneous Effects of Indirect Taxation on Child Health in Punjab-Pakistan," PIDE-Working Papers 2018:158, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    19. Newell, Richard G & Stavins, Robert N, 2003. "Cost Heterogeneity and the Potential Savings from Market-Based Policies," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 43-59, January.
    20. Carlsson, F., 1999. "Incentive-based environmental regulation of domestic civil aviation in Sweden," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 75-82, April.
    21. Sungtak Hong & Kanishka Misra, 2023. "The impact of commodity taxation on product variety: a multi-category investigation," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 591-604, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ags:aaea15:204783. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    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.