Laws That Enable Partnerships: The Case of Proyecto Pensilvania in Bogotá, Colombia

Abstract Waste picking is an informal economy activity that has attracted a large amount of research across the social sciences. We contribute to the debate on informality and its institutional determinants through case study analysis. We present a unique partnership between waste pickers and firms operating in Colombia called Proyecto Pensilvania. We argue that two specific sets of laws made this partnership possible. The first grants legal recognition to the activity pursued by the waste pickers, who become “waste entrepreneurs.” This is a key initial step to bring informal sector workers into the realm of the formal economy. The second grants special legal protection to the associations of waste pickers when they compete for inclusion in the local waste management plans. This is a way to incentivize waste pickers to join associations. Proyecto Pensilvania decreases transaction costs, generates income for disenfranchised groups of individuals and limits environmental degradation. The regulatory reforms that led to its establishment can be imitated by other countries with sizable waste picker populations.

[1]  R. Coase,et al.  The Problem of Social Cost , 1960, The Journal of Law and Economics.

[2]  Tim Forsyth,et al.  Promoting the “development dividend” of climate technology transfer: can cross-sector partnerships help? , 2007 .

[3]  Martha Alter Chen,et al.  Rethinking the Informal Economy: Linkages with the Formal Economy and the Formal Regulatory Environment , 2007 .

[4]  B. Silverman,et al.  New Institutional Economics: Inter-Firm Alliances: A New Institutional Economics Approach , 2008 .

[5]  T. Hahn,et al.  Private Environmental Governance Through Cross-Sector Partnerships , 2014 .

[6]  Henry E. Smith,et al.  Making Coasean Property More Coasean , 2011, The Journal of Law and Economics.

[7]  C. García.  Posibilidades y desafíos de las organizaciones solidarias: el caso de las organizaciones de recicladores en la ciudad de Bogotá , 2011 .

[8]  L. Alston.  New Institutional Economics: The “Case” for Case Studies in New Institutional Economics , 2008 .

[9]  Violina P. Rindova,et al.  Entrepreneuring as Emancipation , 2009 .

[10]  C. Martinez.  Climate Change Risk and Informal Recycling: An NGO and Private Sector Partnership in Bogotá , 2012 .

[11]  D. Allen.  What Are Transaction Costs Anyway , 1988 .

[12]  Kate Parizeau.  Urban political ecologies of informal recyclers׳ health in Buenos Aires, Argentina. , 2015, Health & place.

[13]  A. Hirschman,et al.  Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States , 1971 .

[14]  Sandra Cointreau,et al.  Occupational and environmental health issues of solid waste management : special emphasis on middle and lower-income countries , 2006 .

[15]  S. Dias.  Informal Economy Monitoring Study Sector Report: Waste Pickers-Executive Summary , 2016 .

[16]  Martin Medina,et al.  The Informal recycling Sector in Developing Countries: Organizing Waste Pickers to Enhance their Impact , 2008 .

[17]  A. Hoffman,et al.  The New Heretics , 2014 .

[18]  Chris Birkbeck.  Self-employed Proletarians in an informal factory: The case of Cali's garbage dump , 1978 .

[19]  Donald N. McCloskey.  The Applied Theory of Price , 1982 .

[20]  M. Olson,et al.  The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups , 1969 .

[21]  G. Brady.  Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action , 1993 .

[22]  H. D. Soto.  The mystery of capital : the role of property rights in creating wealth and alleviating poverty , 2004 .

[23]  D. Sicular.  Pockets of peasants in Indonesian cities: The case of scavengers , 1991 .

[24]  David M. Hendron,et al.  Large Landslide Risks in Solid Waste Facilities...Geotechnical Fundamentals Count , 2006 .

[25]  Melanie Samson,et al.  Forging a New Conceptualization of “The Public” in Waste Management , 2015 .

[26]  Rüdiger Hahn,et al.  Resources and Governance in 'Base of the Pyramid' - Partnerships: Assessing Collaborations between Businesses and Non-Business Actors , 2014 .

[27]  J. Landa,et al.  Trust, Ethnicity, and Identity: Beyond the New Institutional Economics of Ethnic Trading Networks, Contract Law, and Gift-Exchange , 1995 .

[28]  O. Williamson.  Comparative Economic Organization: The Analysis of Discrete Structural Alternatives , 1994 .

[29]  Justin W. Webb,et al.  You Say Illegal, I Say Legitimate: Entrepreneurship in the Informal Economy , 2009 .

[30]  Christopher Williams,et al.  Political instability, pro-business market reforms and their impacts on national systems of innovation , 2012 .