Effects of norms, warm-glow and time use on household recycling

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to quantify the relative importance of motivations based on warm-glow, social and moral norms and cost of time used recycling on household recycling efforts. We also test for crowding-out of intrinsic motivations when recycling is perceived as mandatory. We find that the most important variable increasing household recycling efforts is agreeing that recycling is a pleasant activity in itself, which may be interpreted as a warm-glow effect. The most important variable reducing household recycling is the opportunity cost of time spent recycling. We find no evidence of crowding-out of intrinsic motivation when recycling is perceived as mandatory. On the contrary, we find that governmental legislation increases household recycling efforts on most materials. Keywords: Contingent valuation method, cost of time, household recycling, moral and social norms, ordered probit, simultaneous estimation of discrete- and continuous choice, warm-glow, crowding out