Skipping the bag [electronic resource] : the intended and unintended consequences of disposable bag regulation / Tatiana Homonoff, Lee-Sien Kao, Javiera Selman, Christina Seybolt.

Cambridge, Massachusetts : National Bureau of Economic Research, 2021.©2021

Homonoff, Tatiana. author.

National Bureau of Economic Research. issuing body.

01-01-2021

1 online resource.

text

online resource

NBER working paper series ; no. w28499

Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w28499.

WEB (Copy 1) INTERNET 1271870-1001 ONLINE

Open item 

Plastic bags

Retail trade

Statistics

Overseas item

"February 2021"

Includes bibliographical references.

Regulation of goods associated with negative environmental externalities may decrease consumption of the targeted product, but may be ineffective at reducing the externality itself if close substitutes are left unregulated. We find evidence that plastic bag bans, the most common disposable bag regulation in the US, led retailers to circumvent the regulation by providing free thicker plastic bags which are not covered by the ban. In contrast, a regulation change that replaced the ban with a small tax on all disposable bags generated large decreases in disposable bag use and overall environmental costs. Our results suggest that narrowly-defined regulations (like plastic bag bans) may be less effective than policies that target a more comprehensive set of products, even in the case when the policy instrument itself (a tax rather than a ban) is not as strict.

1271870

1271870-1001

Library Catalogue