Job change and self-control of waste pickers: evidence from a field experiment in the Philippines

  • 1375 Views
  • 221 Downloads

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Environmental policies may have a negative side effect on employment, often in a specific industry in the short run. Workers in regulated industries can be affected by losses in job-specific human capital. The informal sectors in developing countries are often associated with environmental pollution and thus targeted by such policies. Welfare loss due to this side effect can be problematic in developing countries, since they often lack safeguarding schemes, including unemployment insurance. Inducing workers in informal sectors to change their jobs can mitigate these negative side effects. This study examines efficient methods of inducing informal workers to change jobs. An alternative job is offered to informal workers at a dumpsite in the Philippines and whether changing the scheme of wage payment increases the acceptance of the offer is examined. The impacts of changing payment schemes are evaluated by using a randomized field experiment. The sampled 112 waste pickers each randomly receive one of four offers for an alternative job, and the number of those who accept the offer is observed to evaluate the impact of less frequent payment (i.e., once every three days instead of daily). Piece rates and fixed wages are also compared. Those offered less frequent payment are more likely to accept the job offer compared with those offered daily payment. This preferred payment scheme can mitigate the side effects of environmental policy and workers’ self-control problem related to savings, while minimizing moral hazard.

view full abstract hide full abstract
    • Fig. 1. Experimental design and sample sizes
    • Table 1. Payment schemes of the four groups
    • Table 2. Summary statistics by group
    • Table 3. Accepting a job offer: marginal effects (logit estimations)
    • Table 4. Accepting a job offer with interaction terms: coefficients (logit estimations)
    • Table A1. Workers’ characteristics by participation status
    • Agunwamba, J. C. (2003). Analysis of scavengers? Activities and recycling in some cities of Nigeria. Environmental Management, 32, 116-127.
    • Albrecht, J., Navarro, L., & Vroman, S. (2009). The effects of labour market policies in an economy with an informal sector. Economic Journal 119, 1105-1129.
    • Ashraf, N., Karlan, D., & Yin, W. (2006). Tying Odysseus to the mast: Evidence from a commitment savings product in the Philippines. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121, 635-672.
    • Asim, M., Batool, S. A., & Chaudhry, M. N. (2012). Scavengers and their role in the recycling of waste in Southwestern Lahore. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 58, 152-162.
    • Baksi, S., & Bose, P. (2016). Informal sector, regulatory compliance, and leakage. Journal of Development Economics, 121, 166-176.
    • Birkbeck, C. (1978). Self-employed proletarians in an informal factory: the case of Cali’s garbage dump. World Development, 6, 1173-1185.
    • Biswas, A. K., Farzanegan, M. R., & Thum, M., (2012). Pollution, shadow economy and corruption: theory and evidence. Ecological Economics, 75, 114-125.
    • Blackman, A., & Bannister, G. J. (1998). Community pressure and clean technology in the informal sector: an econometric analysis of the adoption of propane by traditional Mexican brickmakers. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 35, 1-21.
    • Blackman, A., Shih, J.-S., Evans, D., Batz, M., Newbold, S., & Cook, J. (2006). The benefits and costs of informal sector pollution control: Mexican brick kilns. Environment and Development Economics, 11, 603-627.
    • Bovenberg, A. L., & van der Ploeg, F. (1994). Environmental policy, public finance and the labour market in a second-best world. Journal of Public Economics, 55, 349-390.
    • Bryan, G., Karlan D., & Nelson, S. (2010). Commitment devices. Annual Review of Economics, 2, 671-698.
    • Cano-Urbina, J. (2015). The role of the informal sector in the early careers of less-educated workers. Journal of Development Economics, 112, 33-55.
    • Chaudhuri, S., & Mukhopadhyay, U. (2006). Pollution and informal sector: a theoretical analysis. Journal of Economic Integration, 21, 363-378.
    • Fugazza, M., & Jacques, J.-F. (2004). Labor market institutions, taxation and the underground economy. Journal of Public Economics, 88, 395-418.
    • Gill, K. (2007). Interlinked contracts and social power: patronage and exploitation in India’s waste recovery market. Journal of Development Studies, 43, 1448-1474.
    • Greenstone, M. (2002). The impacts of environmental regulations on industrial activity: evidence from the 1970 and 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments and the Census of Manufactures. Journal of Political Economy, 110, 1175-1219.
    • Gutberlet, J., & Baeder, A. M. (2008). Informal recycling and occupational health in Santo Andre, Brazil. International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 18, 1-15.
    • Hayami, Y., Dikshit, A. K., & Mishra, S. N. (2006). Waste pickers and collectors in Delhi: poverty and environment in an urban informal sector. Journal of Development Studies, 42, 41-69.
    • Kaur, S., Kremer, M., & Mullainathan S. (2015). Self-control at work. Journal of Political Economy, 123, 1227-1277.
    • Lazear, E. P. (1995). Personnel Economics. Boston: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
    • Lazear, E. P. (1998). Personnel Economics for Managers. New York: Wiley.
    • Liu, M., Shadbegian, R., & Zhang, B. (2017). Does environmental regulation affect labor demand in China? Evidence from the textile printing and dyeing industry. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
    • Medina, M. (1998). Border scavenging: a case study of aluminum recycling in Laredo, TX and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Resources Conservation and Recycling, 23, 107-126.
    • Medina, M. (2000). Scavenger cooperatives in Asia and Latin America. Resources Conservation and Recycling, 31, 51-69.
    • Moreno-Sanchez, R. D. P. & Maldonado J. H. (2006). Surviving from garbage: the role of informal waste-pickers in a dynamic model of solid-waste management in developing countries. Environment and Development Economics, 11, 371-391.
    • Nzeadibe, T. C. (2009). Solid waste reforms and informal recycling in Enugu Urban Area, Nigeria. Habitat International, 33, 93-99.
    • Parizeau, K. (2015). When assets are vulnerabilities: an assessment of informal recyclers livelihood strategies in Buenos Aires, Argentina. World Development, 67, 161-173.
    • Paul, J. G., Arce-Jaque, J., Ravena, N., & Villamor, S. P. (2012). Integration of the informal sector into municipal solid waste management in the Philippines: what does it need? Waste Management, 32, 2018-2028.
    • Peters, J., Langbein, J., & Roberts, G. (2016). Policy evaluation, randomized controlled trials, and external validity: a systematic review. Economics Letters, 147, 51-54.
    • Prendergast, C. (1999). The provision of incentives in firms. Journal of Economic Literature, 37, 7-63.
    • Romallosa, A., & Kraft, E. (2017). Feasibility of biomass briquette production from municipal waste streams by integrating the informal sector in the Philippines. Resources, 6, 12.
    • Sasaki, S., & Araki, T. (2013). Employer–employee and buyer–seller relationships among waste pickers at final disposal site in informal recycling: the case of Bantar Gebang in Indonesia. Habitat International, 40, 51-57.
    • Shearer, B. (2004). Piece rates, fixed wages and incentives: evidence from a field experiment. The Review of Economic Studies, 71, 513-534.
    • Tirado-Soto, M. M., & Zamberlan F. L. (2013). Networks of recyclable material waste-picker’s cooperatives: an alternative for the solid waste management in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Waste Management, 33, 1004-1012.
    • Walker, W. R. (2011). Environmental regulation and labor reallocation: evidence from the Clean Air Act. American Economic Review, 101, 442-447.
    • Walker, W. R. (2013). The transitional costs of sectoral reallocation: evidence from the Clean Air Act and the workforce. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 128, 1787-1835.
    • Wilson, D. C., Araba, A. O., Chinwah, K., & Cheeseman C. R. (2009). Building recycling rates through the informal sector. Waste Management, 29, 629-635.
    • Zaied, Y. B., Cheikh, N. B., Nguyen P., & Mahjoub, M. B. (2018). Waste management policy and employment: the case of France. Environmental Economics, 9, 38-46.
Related Articles

  • When knowledge matters: job change made easier? unpacking the black box

    Klaudia SchmidtORCID doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.16(2).2018.07
    Problems and Perspectives in Management Volume 16, 2018         Issue #2         pp. 64-77 Views: 1387 Downloads: 235 TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ

    Knowing where to find inside information can mean the difference between getting a job from a suitable company or following the wrong direction and wasting precious time, happiness or health in the wrong job and job environment. This article investigates the influence of electronic online word of mouth in the form of job reviews during the process of changing jobs and finding the right job. Job review sites are becoming more and more popular in the process of job search. While the professional world has already started to acknowledge job review sites as useful tools in the process of job search, so far, the academic scene has not paid much attention to this dynamic. The intention of this article is to change this. Based on a literature review, this article shows that job review sites already play a central and valuable role in job change processes by giving inside information through employees who already have experience with employers.

  • Role of entrepreneur’s perspective of waste management for coffee shop sustainability

    Muhammad AlfariziORCID Researcher ID, Palupi Lindiasari SamputraORCID Researcher ID, Nor Isnaeni Dwi AristaORCID Researcher ID doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.21(4).2023.38
    Problems and Perspectives in Management Volume 21, 2023         Issue #4         pp. 502-515 Views: 873 Downloads: 203 TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ

    The development of the coffee business as a small and medium enterprise (SME) shows positive things with the increasing number of coffee, which means an abundance of existing coffee grounds. There is a lack of research on entrepreneur perspectives on coffee waste management. This study aims to analyze the perspective of coffee shop entrepreneurs in managing coffee waste and converting waste into alternative energy for sustainable and environmentally friendly prospects. Respondents in this study were 201 coffee shop owners in Bekasi, Indonesia, who received questionnaires using the snowball sampling technique; for data analysis, the paper used PLS-SEM. This study found that the entrepreneur perspective significantly affects coffee waste management, encouraging the sustainability of coffee shops. The results of the R-Square analysis show that coffee shop owner awareness is strongly influenced by coffee waste management knowledge (93.6%); the attitude of coffee shop owners is influenced by coffee waste management knowledge and coffee shop owner awareness (92.5%); and the coffee waste management behavior is influenced by coffee shop owner awareness and attitude of coffee shop owners (97.8%). In addition, entrepreneurs’ excellent attitudes and awareness toward the potential of coffee grounds encourage them to carry out better waste management through sorting procedures to convert coffee grounds into alternative energy.

    Acknowledgment
    This study is funded by the Directorate of Research and Development, Universitas Indonesia, under Hibah PUTI 2022 (Grant No. NKB-1364/UN2.RST/HKP.05.00/2022).

  • Evaluating the efficiency of public expenditure in municipal waste collection: A comparative study of Portuguese municipalities

    Ricardo de Moraes e SoaresORCID doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ee.15(1).2024.15
    Environmental Economics Volume 15, 2024         Issue #1         pp. 203-216 Views: 277 Downloads: 57 TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ

    Effective waste management is fundamental to sustainable development and the well-being of societies. This study focuses on the financial efficiency of urban waste collection in Portuguese municipalities, with the aim to analyze the effects of the allocation of public resources in the waste management sector. The main objective is to analyze the relationship between public spending and waste collection over a five-year period. Through the application of the classic data envelopment analysis model (DEA), the study seeks to observe the existence of benchmarking patterns, identify possible inefficiencies, and determine opportunities for improvement in urban waste management and collection practices. The results suggest substantial variations in waste collection efficiency between municipalities and a positive correlation between public spending and the volume of waste collected. The results emphasize the need for a strategic allocation of financial resources in order to promote sustainable waste management practices. The paper highlights the importance of municipalities reassessing their strategies for allocating financial resources to ensure a better balance between funding and efficiency in the use of resources. The conclusions offer valuable practical implications for defining strategies and managing municipal waste collection services in Portugal and other countries with similar contexts.

    Acknowledgment
    This article is financed by Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal [Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal]. 

Download Preview
Close
Environmental Economics
Environmental Economics