Spillover of different regulatory policies for waste sorting: Potential influence on energy-saving policy...

An emerging body of research has contributed to understanding the spillover effect of pro-environmental behavior. However, most of the previous studies focused on the spillover effects of initial PEBs but neglected the spillover effects of different regulatory policies. This study conducts an experiment through survey questionnaire in Shanghai and Beijing to compare the spillover effects of two different kinds of waste sorting policy, i.e. voluntary participation policy and penalty policy. This study examines the spillover effects of these two policies on people's energy-saving policy acceptance. The examined energy-saving policy include price increase policy and subsidy policy. Results show that initial penalty policy targeted at waste sorting significantly decreases people's acceptability of price increase policy through negative spillover effect, while initial voluntary participation policy significantly increases people's acceptability of price increase policy through positive spillover effect. Nonetheless, no spillover effects are observed for subsidy policy acceptability. It indicates that penalty policy should not be used easily since there is a risk of resulting in negative spillover effects, while the voluntary participation policy should be better made use of in the future policy designment. The findings are meaningful for the local governments to better select and design their regulatory policies for waste sorting, while the Chinese government is going to promote the waste sorting behaviors nationwide. Results can also be used to inform policy development and revision in private and public pro-environmental spheres to achieve overall environmental goals by driving a broader shift in behaviors.