Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Garbage, Recycling, And Illicit Burning Or Dumping, Don Fullerton, Thomas C. Kinnaman
Garbage, Recycling, And Illicit Burning Or Dumping, Don Fullerton, Thomas C. Kinnaman
Thomas C. Kinnaman
With garbage and recycling as the only two disposal options, we confirm prior results that the optimal curbside fee for garbage collection equals the direct resource cost plus external environmental cost. When illicit burning or dumping is a third disposal option that cannot be taxed directly, the optimal curbside tax on garbage changes sign. The optimal fee structure is a deposit-refund system: a tax on all output plus a rebate on proper disposal through either recycling or garbage collection. The output tax helps achieve the first-best allocation even though it affects the choice between consumption and untaxed leisure.
How A Fee Per-Unit Garbage Affects Aggregate Recycling In A Model With Heterogeneous Households, Thomas Kinnaman
How A Fee Per-Unit Garbage Affects Aggregate Recycling In A Model With Heterogeneous Households, Thomas Kinnaman
Thomas C. Kinnaman
Nearly 2000 communities have implemented user fees to finance garbage collection over the last five years. These user fees require households to pay for each bag of garbage presented at the curb for collection (Skumatz 1993). The revenue raised from these user fees has supplanted the use of general tax revenue to finance garbage collection and disposal costs. Benefits to the community include the social value of less garbage and more recycling. The costs include the social cost of additional litter and the value of resources used to administer the program. The magnitudes of both the benefits and costs depend …