This study examines how the timing of waste disposal fee collection affects the producer’s choice of built-in product durability and social welfare in a durable-goods monopoly model. We categorize the waste disposal fee policies into two: advance disposal fee (ADF) policy and disposal fee (DF) policy. We show that a DF policy has two opposing effects on durability. Firstly, a DF policy gives the producer an incentive to increase durability in order to delay the households’ waste disposal and to discount future payments of the disposal fee (the payment-discounting effect). Secondly, a DF policy creates an incentive for consumers to dump waste illegally in order to mitigate the payment of the disposal fee, and gives the producer an incentive to reduce durability in order to avoid market saturation and the associated future price cuts (the illegal-dumping effect). When the disposal fee is low, the payment-discounting effect dominates the illegal-dumping effect under a DF policy, leading to the enhancement of durability. In this case, from a social welfare viewpoint, a DF policy may be more desirable than an ADF policy if the environmental damage associated with illegal dumping is not serious. However, when the disposal fee is high, a DF policy induces more illegal dumping, reduces durability, and inflicts more environmental damage. Therefore, an ADF policy is more socially desirable than a DF policy when the disposal fee is high. Moreover, we consider an oligopoly case and find that an ADF policy is more socially desirable in an industry with smaller market power.

这项研究探讨了在耐用品垄断模式下，废物处理费的收取时间如何影响生产者对内置产品耐用性和社会福利的选择。我们将废物处理费政策分为两类：预先处理费（ADF）政策和处理费（DF）政策。我们表明，DF政策对耐用性有两个相反的影响。首先，DF政策鼓励生产商提高耐用性，以延迟家庭废物的处置并降低未来处置费用的支付（支付－贴现效应）。其次，DF政策鼓励消费者非法倾倒废物，以减轻处置费用的支付，并激励生产者降低耐用性，以避免市场饱和和相关的未来降价（非法倾销效应）。在处置费较低的情况下，根据免税政策，支付折算的效果比非法倾销的效果要好，从而提高了耐用性。在这种情况下，从社会福利的角度来看，如果与非法倾倒相关的环境损害不严重，DF政策可能比ADF政策更为可取。然而，当处置费用很高时，免税政策会导致更多的非法倾倒，降低耐用性并造成更多的环境破坏。因此，当处置费用较高时，ADF政策比DF政策在​​社会上更受欢迎。而且，