Municipal waste generation and the EKC hypothesis. New evidence exploiting province-based panel data

This article provides empirical evidence on delinking and Environmental\r\nKuznets Curve (EKC) for municipal waste generation in Italy.\r\nA disaggregated panel data-set on Italian Provinces is exploited.\r\nThe empirical analysis of different specifications shows a first evidence in\r\nfavour of an EKC relationship with regard to waste generation.\r\nNevertheless, the turning point (TP) is at very high levels of added value\r\nper capita (around 23 000–26 000E), which concern a very limited number\r\nof wealthy Northern Italian provinces. Finally, the test on some waste\r\nmanagement instruments proxies, leads to the conclusion that they are not\r\nyet impacting waste generation. To lower the TPs and to avoid an\r\nincreasing gap between geographical areas, market based and more\r\neffective policy instruments should be implemented. In particular,\r\nthe weight of waste policies should be rebalanced towards waste prevention\r\ntargets according to the European waste hierarchy.