IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ipu/wpaper/17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Waste disposal and decentralisation: a welfare approach

Author

Listed:
  • Laura Levaggi

    (Libera Università di Bolzano, Italy)

  • Rosella Levaggi

    (Università di Brescia, Italy)

  • Carmine Trecroci

    (Università di Brescia, Italy)

Abstract

Since the seminal work of Oates (1972) on scal federalism, a central question of public finance has been which level of a federation should be as- signed the provision of public goods. In this paper we study the problem of a government that is to choose the optimal centralization/decentralization mechanism for the final treatment of municipal solid waste. We analyze incentives, equilibria and implications of the governance framework for the disposal of waste. The key decisions revolve around the mobility of waste and the externalities (pollution) associated with its disposal, be it incineration or landfill. Moreover, if the Regions are characterized by different levels of efficiency in the processes they apply to the final treat- ment of waste, in theory a certain degree of waste mobility across regions should allow to reap the benefits of higher efficiency. On the other hand, as transportation and other environmental costs implied by mobility and concentration are significant, a trade-off emerges. Our model evaluates the implications of that trade-off for the optimal degree of decentralization in waste management.

Suggested Citation

  • Laura Levaggi & Rosella Levaggi & Carmine Trecroci, 2015. "Waste disposal and decentralisation: a welfare approach," Working papers 17, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    • Handle: RePEc:ipu:wpaper:17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.siepweb.it/siep/wp/wp-content/uploads/repec/1420710602Levaggi_et_al_WP_SIEP_683.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Massimiliano Mazzanti & Roberto Zoboli, 2009. "Municipal Waste Kuznets Curves: Evidence on Socio-Economic Drivers and Policy Effectiveness from the EU," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 44(2), pages 203-230, October.
    2. Massimiliano Mazzanti & Anna Montini & Francesco Nicolli, 2012. "Waste dynamics in economic and policy transitions: decoupling, convergence and spatial effects," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(5), pages 563-581, August.
    3. Wallace E. Oates & Wallace E. Oates, 2004. "An Essay on Fiscal Federalism," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 22, pages 384-414, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Koethenbuerger, Marko, 2008. "Revisiting the "Decentralization Theorem"--On the role of externalities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 116-122, July.
    5. Hikaru Ogawa & David E. Wildasin, 2009. "Think Locally, Act Locally: Spillovers, Spillbacks, and Efficient Decentralized Policymaking," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1206-1217, September.
    6. H. Spencer Banzhaf & B. Andrew Chupp, 2010. "Heterogeneous Harm vs. Spatial Spillovers: Environmental Federalism and US Air Pollution," NBER Working Papers 15666, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Oates, Wallace E. & Schwab, Robert M., 1988. "Economic competition among jurisdictions: efficiency enhancing or distortion inducing?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 333-354, April.
    8. Oates, Wallace E., 2008. "On the Evolution of Fiscal Federalism: Theory and Institutions," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 61(2), pages 313-334, June.
    9. Per Fredriksson, 2000. "The Siting of Hazardous Waste Facilities in Federal Systems: The Political Economy of NIMBY," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 15(1), pages 75-87, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James Alm & H. Spencer Banzhaf, 2012. "Designing Economic Instruments For The Environment In A Decentralized Fiscal System," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 177-202, April.
    2. Stephanie Armbruster & Beat Hintermann, 2020. "Decentralization with porous borders: public production in a federation with tax competition and spillovers," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(3), pages 606-642, June.
    3. Rosella Levaggi & Paolo M. Panteghini, 2021. "Public expenditure spillovers: an explanation for heterogeneous tax reaction functions," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(3), pages 497-514, June.
    4. Laura Levaggi & Rosella Levaggi & Carmen Marchiori & Carmine Trecroci, 2020. "Waste-to-Energy in the EU: The Effects of Plant Ownership, Waste Mobility, and Decentralization on Environmental Outcomes and Welfare," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-12, July.
    5. Banzhaf, H. Spencer & Chupp, B. Andrew, 2012. "Fiscal federalism and interjurisdictional externalities: New results and an application to US Air pollution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(5), pages 449-464.
    6. Daniel Gama e Colombo & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2018. "Fiscal Decentralization and Public R&D Policy: A Country Panel Analysis," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1820, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    7. Zhihong Zeng & Chen You, 2022. "The Price of Becoming a City: Decentralization and Air Pollution—The Evidence from the Policy of County-to-City Upgrade in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-18, November.
    8. Ines Helm & Jan Stuhler, 2024. "The Dynamic Response of Municipal Budgets to Revenue Shocks," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 484-527, October.
    9. Degli Antoni, Giacomo & Vittucci Marzetti, Giuseppe, 2019. "Recycling and Waste Generation: An Estimate of the Source Reduction Effect of Recycling Programs," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 321-329.
    10. Wallace E. Oates & Wallace E. Oates, 2004. "Fiscal Competition and European Union: Contrasting Perspectives," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 10, pages 182-194, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. George Crowley & Russell Sobel, 2011. "Does fiscal decentralization constrain Leviathan? New evidence from local property tax competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 5-30, October.
    12. Zhao, Feifei & Hu, Zheng & Yi, Ping & Zhao, Xu, 2024. "Does environmental decentralization improve industrial ecology? Evidence from China's Yangtze River Economic Belt," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1250-1270.
    13. Saeid Mahdavi & Joakim Westerlund, 2017. "Are state–local government expenditures converging? New evidence based on sequential unit root tests," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 373-403, September.
    14. Ana B. Ania & Andreas Wagener, 2021. "Laboratory federalism with public funds sharing," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1047-1065, July.
    15. Thomas Eichner & Marco Runkel, 2012. "Interjurisdictional Spillovers, Decentralized Policymaking, and the Elasticity of Capital Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2349-2357, August.
    16. Geys, Benny & Konrad, Kai A., . "Federalism and optimal allocation across levels of governance," Chapters in Economics,, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    17. Seppo Honkapohja & Frank Westermann, 2009. "Rethinking Subsidiarity in the EU: Economic Principles," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Seppo Honkapohja & Frank Westermann (ed.), Designing the European Model, chapter 10, pages 331-365, Palgrave Macmillan.
    18. Sailian Xia & Daming You & Zhihua Tang & Bo Yang, 2021. "Analysis of the Spatial Effect of Fiscal Decentralization and Environmental Decentralization on Carbon Emissions under the Pressure of Officials’ Promotion," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-21, March.
    19. Eichner, Thomas & Pethig, Rüdiger, 2018. "Competition in emissions standards and capital taxes with local pollution," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 191-203.
    20. Haitao Cheng, 2023. "Consumption pollution and taxes with endogenous firm locations and different market sizes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(6), pages 1601-1632, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    waste disposal; cross border shopping; decentralisation; welfare;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • Q20 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ipu:wpaper:17. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Monica Bozzano (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.