The effects of neighbour influence and cultural consumption on separate waste collection. Theoretical framework and empirical investigation

Separate waste collection (SWC) is a policy priority for EU countries. This work investigates the effect of neighbour influence and cultural consumption on municipal SWC, with a twofold focus: first, it outlines a simple theoretical framework where the motivations underlying pro-environmental behaviours are influence by neighbour effects and cultural consumption. Second, it tests the theoretical results, implementing a quantile regression on Italian municipal data for 2012. The results confirm that neighbours influence each other, while different cultural goods produce different effects. These findings indicate that the cultural policy may play a relevant role in tackling environmental issues.