The languages and compilers I'm familiar with (Scala, Haskell, MLton) all pay a cost, usually in compile time.
[1] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/akenn/generics...
In F#, you can use hat types via inlining to get even more power. Like creating a map function that works directly on List, Array, and Set - but without using any common interface. Pretty neat, but it emits the function's IL into every callsite so it can get out of hand.
I recall there being a mailing list thread on Go where the designers addressed this. I've no idea how Go is implemented so perhaps the multiple-copies problem is actually significant.
Also addressed by Ada generics for example. There are many others.
Strong typed languages with generics go back to CLU (1974), so there are lots of research material, as well as, real languages if one steps outside Java/C++ implementation mindset.