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ILLEGAL DISPOSAL AND WASTE COLLECTION FREQUENCY
Author(s) -
FERRARA IDA
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
pacific economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1468-0106
pISSN - 1361-374X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0106.2011.00546.x
Subject(s) - economics , natural resource economics , environmental science , waste management , business , engineering
A model of household refuse production is presented in which the implications of the presence of dumping incentives for the public choice of garbage collection frequency under a user fee system are analysed. Insofar as governments wishing to balance their waste collection service budgets can set the marginal benefit of collecting garbage equal to its marginal cost, no externality arises through pick‐up frequency. However, when the expected punishment for dumping is zero or independent of its extent, the public provision of refuse collection frequency turns out to be negatively affected by the amount of garbage that individuals dump and, therefore, intervention in the management of household waste is required. The optimal policy is found to consist of taxes on consumption goods and subsidies for curbside (or legal) disposal and recycling that are directly linked to collection costs.