Governments enact various regulations to decrease the use of plastic. This raises the question of whether the effectiveness of such measures is restricted to the realm of the plastic products being regulated, or whether and how it ‘spills over’ on to the use of other plastic products. Leveraging scanner and survey data across 22 countries, the authors show that a ban or a charge on plastic bags strengthens descriptive social norms to avoid plastic, which in turn curbs the purchasing and use of plastic bottles, as well as of other plastics. Yet there is also a dark side to charging consumers for plastic bags, as a negative cueing effect can lower concerns about plastic pollution and make consumers less vigilant about their use of other plastic products. Taken together, this research shows that government regulation aimed at changing small common behaviors potentially has a much larger impact via spillover effects.

各国政府颁布了各种法规来减少塑料的使用。这就提出了这样的问题：这些措施的有效性是否仅限于受监管的塑料产品领域，或者是否以及如何“溢出”到其他塑料产品的使用。作者利用 22 个国家的扫描仪和调查数据表明，对塑料袋的禁令或收费强化了避免使用塑料的描述性社会规范，从而限制了塑料瓶以及其他塑料的购买和使用。然而，向消费者收取塑料袋费用也有其阴暗面，因为负面提示效应可以降低对塑料污染的担忧，并使消费者对使用其他塑料产品降低警惕。总的来说，这项研究表明，旨在改变微小的共同行为的政府监管可能会通过溢出效应产生更大的影响。