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The author would like to thank Peter Berck, Fredrik Carlsson, Mitesh Kataria, Peter Martinsson, Thomas Sterner, Jiegen Wei, Qian Weng, the editors and two anonymous reviewers, and seminar participants at the University of Gothenburg, Peking University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences for helpful comments on this paper. The author is also grateful to the fieldwork support team from Guizhou University and Peking University. Financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) to the Environmental Economics Unit and to the Environment for Development initiative at the University of Gothenburg is gratefully acknowledged.
1.
Introduction
Plastic bag litter has become a common problem across continents and countries, waterways and oceans. Many countries and cities around the globe are now taking action against the use of plastic bags in an attempt to reduce litter and pollution. However, previous experience has shown that, unless the correct instruments are chosen and enforced effectively and persistently, plastic bag litter control will not be successful. China, the number one consumer of plastic bags in the world, has joined the list of countries that are taking action against the use of plastic bags by banning thin, free plastic shopping bags. In June 2008, a market-based regulation that forces shops to charge for the use of these bags was implemented. Accordingly, it is of interest to analyze to what extent the market-based environmental policy, intended to influence all citizens who use plastic bags, actually affects people's behavior and to analyze the factors affecting the influence of the policy.
This paper focuses on these issues by relying on individual-level data from surveys conducted with consumers both before and after the implementation of the regulation. In addition, we try to understand in more detail the impacts of the regulation on different groups of people and at different locations and shopping occasions. Since the regulation has failed to be perfectly enforced, i.e., some shops still provide the bags for free, it is also of interest to investigate the influence of enforcement variation on people's bag consumption behavior. The resulting information is intended to help policy makers better understand the role of the regulation for short-term plastic shopping bag 1 reduction and to suggest possible ways to further...