Fair and Efficient Implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility Legislation

生产者责任延伸(EPR)是一种政策工具，要求生产者对其产品的使用后收集、回收和处置承担经济责任。EPR正在迅速成为美国管理电子垃圾的首选政策工具。普遍的实施形式是集体系统，其中一个中央程序负责处理在该州收集的所有电子垃圾。由此产生的成本将按市场份额或返还份额分配给在该州销售的生产商。这些分配方案没有考虑生产者的异质性或网络效应，因此本质上是不公平的，这一直是实施的一个重大障碍。因此，这项研究的第一个目标是建立公平而实用的成本分配机制，确保生产者广泛参与中央项目，从而最大化从EPR立法中获得的福利收益。此外，还将设计不依赖直接成本分配和捕捉网络效应的有效市场机制。收集和回收网络的每一个方面都存在固有的不确定性。因此，将制定在不确定情况下有效发挥作用的成本分配和市场机制。美国的电子垃圾法案在收集和回收目标、产品范围、选择退出州计划的能力等方面的细节差异很大。因此，这项研究的一个重要目标是评估现有政策选择的范围，以帮助设计有效的立法。通过在政策评估中嵌入协作网络博弈分析，我们的方法捕捉到了EPR项目中操作层面和政策层面之间的联系，如果成功，本研究的结果将通过开发知识库为相关各方提供决策支持，从而使美国EPR立法能够公平和高效地实施。所提出的研究将在稳健优化、合作博弈论和机制设计的交叉点上扩展知识库。最后，这一努力将为研究人员和其他学者的进一步分析提供丰富的数据。

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a policy tool that holds producers financially responsible for the post-use collection, recycling and disposal of their products. EPR is rapidly becoming the preferred policy tool in the U.S. for managing electronic waste. The prevalent form of implementation is a collective system, where one central program is responsible for processing all the e-waste collected in the state. The resulting cost is then allocated to the producers selling in the state by market share or return share. These allocation schemes do not take into account producer heterogeneity or network effects and are thus inherently unfair, which has been a significant barrier to implementation. Hence, the first objective of this research is to develop fair but practical cost allocation mechanisms that ensure widespread producer participation in the central program so as to maximize the welfare gains from EPR legislation. Moreover, effective market mechanisms that do not rely on direct cost allocation and that capture network effects will be designed. There is uncertainty inherent in every aspect of collection and recycling networks. Consequently, cost allocations and market mechanisms that function effectively under uncertainty will be developed. E-waste bills in the U.S. vary widely in their specifics relating to collection and recycling targets, product scope, ability to opt out of the state plan, etc. Hence, an important objective of this research is to evaluate the range of existing policy choices in order to assist in the design of effective legislation. Our approach captures the linkage between the operational and policy levels in EPR programs by embedding collaborative network game analysis within policy evaluation.If successful, the results of this research will enable the fair and efficient implementation of EPR legislation in the United States by developing the knowledge base to provide decision support to the involved parties. The proposed research will extend the knowledge base at the intersection of robust optimization, cooperative game theory, and mechanism design. Finally, this effort will provide a wealth of data for further analysis by the researchers and other academics.