Essays in environmental economics

The three essays included consider unintended consequences of state bottle laws on labor markets. Eleven U.S. states have enacted "bottle laws" that encourage household recycling of beverage container materials through a deposit-refund program.; The first paper focuses on answering the question: who are the people collecting recyclable materials? Using survey data from recycling centers in California I investigate the demographics of all cash recyclers. I find the image of the homeless recycler is incomplete. In addition to the homeless recyclers, a surprising number of professional and work recyclers use trucks and vans to recycle both as a full-time job and as a second job as well as household recyclers. While there are many descriptive articles about cash recyclers this is the first study that looks empirically at people recycling for cash. Using survey data I draw a picture of the recyclers, estimate a recycling wage, and analyze what determines that wage.; The second paper uses the individual level data that I have collected on observed cash recycling behavior to show that an unintended consequence of bottle laws is that they have the potential to increase the incomes of very low wage workers. If states set the bottle deposit high enough, harvesting recyclables becomes viable employment. The use of a price system as an environmental remedy is often criticized on the grounds that it leads to lower incomes for the poor. In this case deposit-refund recycling laws may provide a way to improve resource allocation using the appropriate Pigouvian tax, and simultaneously provide a way to increase the income of low wage workers. The data show the surprising result that recycling income does indeed provide a substantial supplemental income to a certain group of low-income cash recyclers.; The third paper examines the degree to which using bottle laws to subsidize recycling programs improves labor market opportunities and has a negative effect on petty crime rates. Using a simple choice theory model of crime participation and labor supply this paper examines the decision by individuals to engage in illegal activities. When the legal wage increases, recycling bottles and cans, we expect to see people substituting their time and effort away from the illegal activity to the legal activity. In a natural experiment this paper exploits the variation in the year of implementation of the bottle laws to measure the reduction in crime rates of improved job market opportunities. This paper shows that the opportunity effect, that is a result of state bottle laws, results in about a 10% decrease in average reported larceny rates. In this way the primary positive benefits of these labor market changes go to low-income individuals, but secondary benefits trickle up to higher wage earners.