TY  - JOUR
AU  - Fullerton,Don
AU  - Kinnaman,Thomas C.
TI  - "Household Responses for Pricing Garbage by the Bag,"
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 4670
PY  - 1994
Y2  - March 1994
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4670
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4670.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Don Fullerton
Department of Finance
University of Illinois
BIF Box#30 (MC520)
515 East Gregory Drive
Champaign, IL  61820
Tel: 217/244-3621
Fax: 217/244-3102
E-Mail: dfullert@illinois.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1994-08-01
AB  - This paper estimates household reaction to the implementation of unit-pricing for the collection of residential garbage.  We gather original data on weight and volume of weekly garbage and recycling of 75 households in Charlottesville, Virginia, both before and after the start of a program that requires an eighty-cent sticker on each bag of garbage.  This data set is the first of its kind.  We estimate household demands for the collection of garbage and recyclable material, the effect on density of household garbage, and the amount of illegal dumping by households.  We also estimate the probability that a household chooses each method available to reduce its garbage. In response to the implementation of this unit-pricing program, we find that households (1) reduced the weight of their garbage by 14%, (2) reduced the volume of garbage by 37% and (3) increased the weight of their recyclable materials by 16%.  We estimate that additional illegal -- or at least suspicious -- disposal accounts for 0.42 pounds per person per week, or 28% of the reduction in garbage observed at the curb.
ER  -