Waste performance, waste technology and policy effects

Exploiting a balanced panel data set for 103 Italian provinces over the year 1999–2010, we study the effect of technological improvements, environmental policy and their interactions on waste management performance. The results point to the existence of both complementarity and substitution effects between green technological change and environmental policies. Moreover, we extend the baseline analysis to study whether knowledge spillovers play a role in affecting waste management options such as recycling, incineration and landfilling. To account for technological spillovers, we constructed an indicator that sums the patent stock of neighbouring provinces. The evidence suggests that knowledge stock has a positive impact on recycling and knowledge spillovers influence both recycling and incineration.