Abstract
This paper analyses, in the context of the Environmental Kuznet Curve, the determinants of export intensity of hazardous industrial waste among Spanish regions, with particular attention to the influence of waste taxes and of environmental policies. This study is carried out for the first time in the literature with a spatial dynamic model, fixed effects and panel data for the 17 regions (Comunidades Autónomas) of Spain during the period 2007–2017. The results suggest there is a spatial-dynamic component to export intensity, and that both regional taxes on waste disposal and environmental policy stringency appear to encourage, albeit modestly, the rate of exported waste to other regions. The model also shows that the more regions recycle, and the greater the economies of scale arising from industrial agglomeration, the lower is the region’s waste export intensity, although increasing restrictions on the international trade in hazardous waste have intensified trading inside the country. Finally, the results suggest a non-linear relationship between growth and export intensity, although apparently we are still far from the absolute decoupling of the Environmental Kuznet Curve.
Highlights
The pace and volume of industrial waste generation have created a trade flow of waste on an international scale, involving both European countries which sell part of their waste to each other, to be treated, recycled, and in the best-case scenario, its value recovered; and developing countries, which sometimes become the main importers of the industrial waste of rich countries
Little attention has been paid in the literature to flows of hazardous industrial waste, especially those that happen inside a country, despite the fact that analysis at the subnational level provides a fairly homogeneous context for study in terms of the institutional framework and the statistical quality of information; that quantitatively, regional flows of waste are much larger, in relative terms, than international flows; and that as Jensen (2012) points out, examining subnational hazardous waste flows is more informative to modellers and policymakers than research focusing on international hazardous waste flows
In this paper we study the determinants of the subnational trade in hazardous industrial waste, paying particular attention to whether regional industrial waste taxes and environmental policies encourage the export intensity of this type of waste
Summary
The pace and volume of industrial waste generation have created a trade flow of waste on an international scale, involving both European countries which sell part of their waste to each other, to be treated, recycled, and in the best-case scenario, its value recovered; and developing countries, which sometimes become the main importers of the industrial waste of rich countries.
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