Economics Research Community Seminar – Dr Armenak Antinyan

Title: Breaking the Bag Habit Testing Interventions to Reduce Plastic Bag Demand in Developing Country

Date: 27 September 2023

Time: 13:00-14:00

Location: NUBS.2.14

Guest Speaker: Dr Armenak Antinyan, Lecturer at Cardiff Business School

If you would like to attend, please register using the following link:

Breaking the Bag Habit: Testing Interventions to Reduce Plastic Bag Demand in a Developing Country

Dr Armenak Antinyan is a lecturer at Cardiff Business School. His research interests fall into the fields of Behavioral and Experimental Economics. He studies human behavior in various contexts with the help of laboratory, survey, and field experiments. To keep his research policy relevant, he periodically collaborate with government institutions in different countries (e.g., Armenia, China) and international development organizations (e.g., KfW, UNDP, IOM). He obtained hisPh.D. in Behavioral and Experimental Economics at the Graduate School of Economics and Management at the University of Venice, Italy.

Abstract:

Little is known about the impact of interventions aimed at reducing the demand for single-use plastic bags. In a natural field experiment conducted in a big supermarket chain in Armenia, we test how a nudge (information on the environmental impact of plastic), a competitive financial bonus scheme, and a free provision of reusable bags affect the demand for disposable bags. Relative to the baseline with no intervention, both the bonus and the nudge considerably reduce the purchase of disposable bags. The bonus scheme and the environmental nudge are equally effective when not combined with free reusable bags. However, the financial bonus scheme combined with a free reusable bag is a more potent catalyst of pro-environmental behavior than the environmental nudge combined with a similar bag. Individuals actively use the tote bags to ditch plastic in the presence of a competitive bonus.