Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-lvtdw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-16T00:52:47.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Exploring the driving forces of waste generation in the Portuguese municipalities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2020

Elias Soukiazis  and
Sara Proença Open the ORCID record for Sara Proença [Opens in a new window]
Elias Soukiazis
Affiliation:
Faculty of Economics, CeBER and University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Sara Proença*
Affiliation:
CERNAS and Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra/ESAC, Coimbra, Portugal
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: sproenca@esac.pt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper explores the driving forces behind household waste generation in the Portuguese municipalities. The focus of the analysis is to empirically test the validity of the waste Kuznets curve (wKc) hypothesis, which postulates an inverted U-shaped relationship between waste generation and economic activity. Panel data is collected for 307 municipalities over the 2009–2018 period. Estimating the fixed-effects model and its dynamic versions of the waste generation equation, the decoupling hypothesis is confirmed, although it is only observed in the richest region of Lisbon and three other municipalities. Results suggest that the productive structure of the local economies is important for explaining waste generation behavior. Population ageing contributes negatively to waste generation, while population density and the development dichotomy are not important drivers in this process. Finally, tourism inflows have a positive effect on municipal waste generation, although the size of the impact is minimal.

Keywords

environmental Kuznets curvepanel dataPortuguese municipalitiessocioeconomic structurewaste generation

JEL classification

Q32: Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development C33: Panel Data Models • Spatio-temporal Models Q01: Sustainable Development O18: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis • Housing • Infrastructure J11: Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts Q53: Air Pollution • Water Pollution • Noise • Hazardous Waste • Solid Waste • Recycling
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , August 2021 , pp. 340 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arellano, M and Bond, S (1991) Some tests of specification in panel data: monte carlo evidence and the application to employment equations. Review of Economic Studies 58, 277–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arellano, M and Bover, O (1995) Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models. Journal of Econometrics 68, 29–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baltagi, BH (2005) Econometric Analysis of Panel Data, 3rd Edn. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Google Scholar
Baum, CF (2006) An Introduction to Modern Econometrics Using Stata. College Station, TX: Stata Press.Google Scholar
Beigl, P, Lebersorger, S and Salhofer, S (2008) Modelling municipal solid waste generation: a review. Waste Management 28, 200–214.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blundell, R and Bond, S (1998) Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models. Journal of Econometrics 87, 115–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, M, Rayner, A and Bates, J (1997) The environmental Kuznets curve: empirical analysis. Environment and Development Economics 2, 401–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ercolano, S, Gaeta, G, Ghinoi, S and Silvestri, F (2018) Kuznets curve in municipal solid waste production: an empirical analysis based on municipal-level panel data from the Lombardy region (Italy). Ecological Indicators 93, 397–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
EU (European Union) (2013) Decision No 1386/2013/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 November 2013 ‘Living well, within the limits of our planet’. Available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32013D1386.Google Scholar
Eurostat (2019) Waste Statistics. Available at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Waste_statistics.Google Scholar
Galeotti, M, Lanza, A and Pauli, F (2006) Reassessing the environmental Kuznets curve for CO2 emissions: a robustness exercise. Ecological Economics 57, 152–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossman, GM and Krueger, AB (1995) Economic growth and the environment. Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, 353–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gui, S, Zhao, L and Zhang, Z (2019) Does municipal solid waste generation in China support the Environmental Kuznets Curve? New evidence from spatial linkage analysis. Waste Management 84, 310–319.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hage, O, Sandberg, K, Söderholm, P and Berglund, C (2018) The regional heterogeneity of household recycling: a spatial-econometric analysis of Swedish plastic packing waste. Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences 11, 245–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hettige, H, Mani, M and Wheeler, D (2000) Industrial pollution in economic development: the environmental Kuznets curve revisited. Journal of Development Economics 62, 445–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ichinose, D, Yamamoto, M and Yoshida, Y (2015) The decoupling of affluence and waste discharge under spatial correlation: do richer communities discharge more waste? Environment and Development Economics 20, 161–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaligot, R and Chenal, J (2018) Decoupling municipal solid waste generation and economic growth in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. Resources, Conservation. & Recycling 130, 260–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, N and Labonne, J (2004) Generation of household solid waste in OECD countries: an empirical analysis using macroeconomic data. Land Economics 80, 529–538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuznets, S (1955) Economic growth and income inequality. American Economic Review 45, 1–28.Google Scholar
Madden, B, Florin, N, Mohr, S and Giurco, D (2019) Using the waste Kuznet's curve to explore regional variation in the decoupling of waste generation and socioeconomic indicators. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 149, 674–686.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazzanti, M, Montini, A and Zoboli, R (2008) Municipal waste generation and socio-economic drivers: evidence from comparing Northern and Southern Italy. The Journal of Environmental & Development 17, 51–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazzanti, M, Montini, A and Zoboli, R (2009) Municipal waste generation and the EKC hypothesis: new evidence exploiting province-based panel data. Applied Economics Letters 16, 719–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PORDATA (2019) Municipality database. Available at https://www.pordata.pt/en/Home.Google Scholar
Raymond, L (2004) Economic growth as environmental policy? Reconsidering the environmental Kuznets Curve. Journal of Public Policy 24, 327–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roodman, D (2009) How to do xtabond2: an introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata. Stata Journal 9, 86–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stern, D (2004) The rise and fall of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. World Development 32, 1419–1438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swart, J and Groot, L (2015) Waste management alternatives: (dis) economies of scale in recovery and decoupling. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 94, 43–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trujillo, JC, Bermúdez, B, Charris, C and Inglesias, W (2013) The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC): an analysis landfilled solid waste in Colombia. Revista Facultad de Ciencias Económicas 21, 7–16.Google Scholar
Tsurumi, T and Managi, S (2010) Decomposition of the environmental Kuznets curve: scale, technique, and composition effects. Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 11, 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Unruh, GC and Moomaw, WR (1998) An alternative analysis of apparent EKC-type transitions. Ecological Economics 25, 221–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Windmeijer, F (2005) A finite sample correction for the variance of linear efficient two-step GMM estimators. Journal of Econometrics 126, 25–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Soukiazis and Proença supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Soukiazis and Proença supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 266.1 KB