Conference Agenda

When it comes to municipal solid waste, developing countries are stuck in a worse-level equilibrium. Households do not segregate at source, as a result waste is dumped in landfills. In order to enable and sustain circularity in municipal solid waste management, we need to design a system that is financially and logistically feasible. However, providing a dedicated add on waste collection service for a category of waste might not feasible either logistically or financially. So, in this study we experiment with providing households with a kerb-side collection service. Secondly, segregating waste is a long-term activity and thus would require households to invest in infrastructure from time to time to continue with it. Thus, we also examine how likely are households to buy infrastructure to carry on segregating once the one-time intervention from municipality breaks down. Further, existence of an efficiency gain from segregation at source is often questioned in the presence of a well-functioning informal sector which ekes out a living by foraging for recyclables from landfills or secondary waste bins. Thus, we answer the question, does segregation at source increase the quantity of clean recyclable material available for recycling? We ran an experiment in Mymensingh with 1,572 households. We find that households change their waste disposal behavior on receipt of information, however the segregation rates for this group are not as strong as the groups that received plastic bags or dustbins in addition to information.

Public support for climate policy instruments is crucial for implementing policies able to achieve climate targets. We provide evidence from a consequential survey experiment where participants (N>1,000) can choose from a set of three abatement options that marginally tighten existing policies within the EU policy mix. Comparing individual and collective decision making, we find that they concur at the aggregate level in a baseline condition but systematically differ - also in terms of which policy wins - if participants receive a common signal on instrument effectiveness. This provides revealed-preference causal evidence on both a knowledge gain and a coordination effect of public expert advice, shows that inefficient policy lock-ins based on second-order beliefs exist, and points out potential escape routes. Moreover, stated-preference support not framed as a choice between alternatives is shown to be only weakly associated with consequential choices amongst a defined set of policy instruments. 200 tons of CO2 emissions were abated as a result of the decisions taken in this study

Individual preferences for public goods depend on personal benefits. We show that relative income perceptions affect beliefs about personal benefits and thereby preferences for public goods. In two survey experiments with Indian respondents on the topic of air pollution, we shift relative income perceptions using both a novel method that induces exogenous variation, and a standard information treatment. We then elicit preferences for air quality, including real-stakes contributions to environmental initiatives. When perceived relative income increases, right-wing supporters withdraw contributions. This coincides with reduced health concerns and lower adoption of private protection against pollution. Contributions are unchanged among center-left supporters.

Does information influence policy support? We administer a large-scale representative survey with randomised video treatments to test how different policy frames affect citizens' attitudes towards urban tolls in two large European metropolitan areas without tolls, Berlin-Brandenburg and Paris-Ile de France. Providing information on air pollution increases support by up to 11.4%p, information on climate change and time savings increase support by 7.1 and 6.5%p, respectively. Treatment effects are stronger in the Paris region, where initial support is lower. We also investigate treatment effect heterogeneity across different socioeconomic characteristics as well as by prior beliefs held about the severity of environmental and traffic problems, and we find weak spillovers of our treatment on the support of other policies. Our findings imply that targeted communication of policy co-benefits can increase policy support across different population groups.