L’Environmental Kuznets Curve nel Settore dei Rifiuti Solidi Urbani

This paper provides a specific application of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory in order to explain the correlation between income and household waste generation. The model highlights an U-shaped path of income-refuse relationship that verifies the existence of EKC depending on the effort of household recycling and consumption. The existence of delinking can derive by income and other socio economic variables that affect the shape of the curve. This model would be a particular application of the theory of delinking with the intent to be empirically implemented.Environmental Kuznets Curve, Waste Collection, Delinking, Waste policies

Are You SURE You Want to Waste Policy Chances? Waste Generation, Landfill Diversion and Environmental Policy Effectiveness in the EU15

We empirically test delinking of waste dynamics with regard to economic growth and the effectiveness of environmental and specific waste-related policies, by exploiting a newly constructed, integrated waste-economic-policy dataset based on official data for the EU15 for 1995-2007. We find that absolute delinking for waste generation is far from being achieved in the EU despite fairly stringent and longstanding policy commitment that goes back to the mid 1990s, but which however is biased towards waste management and waste disposal rather than waste prevention. Policy as well as country structural factors seem to impact instead on landfill diversion. Nevertheless, country heterogeneity matters: SURE based analyses show that EU average figures often hide high variance. Their results provide food for thought for a future most comprehensive EU waste policy strategy, which is now aimed mainly at landfill diversion, within a framework strongly oriented to allowing countries to decide about the implementation of EU directives.Waste Generation, Landfill Diversion, SUR, EU Waste Policy, Environmental Policy, Delinking

Waste Generation, Incineration and Landfill Diversion. De-coupling Trends, Socio-Economic Drivers and Policy Effectiveness in the EU

Waste generation and waste disposal are issues that are becoming increasingly prominent in the environmental arena both from a policy perspective and in the context of delinking analysis. Waste generation is still increasing proportionally with income, and economic and environmental costs associated to landfilling are also increasing. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of waste generation, incineration, recycling and landfill dynamics based on panel data for the EU25, to assess the effects of different drivers (economic, structural, policy) and the eventual differences between western and eastern EU countries. We show that for waste generation there is still no Waste Kuznets Curve (WKC) trend, although elasticity to income drivers appear lower than in the past. Landfill and other policy effects do not seem to provide backward incentives for waste prevention. Regarding landfill and incineration, the two trends, as expected, are respectively decreasing and increasing, with policy providing a strong driver. It demonstrates the effectiveness of policy even in this early stage of policy implementation. This is essential for an ex post evaluation of existing landfill and incineration directives. Eastern countries appear to perform generally quite well, thus benefiting from their EU membership and related policies in terms of environmental performances. We may conclude that although absolute delinking is far from being achieved for waste generation, there are first positive signals in favour of an increasing relative delinking for waste generation and average robust landfill diversion, and various evidence of a significant role of the EU waste policies implemented in the late 1990s and early 2000s on landfill diversion. Waste prevention is nevertheless the next necessary target of waste regulatory efforts.Waste Kuznets Curves, Delinking, Waste Generation, Waste Disposal, Landfilling, Landfill Policies, Evaluation Methodology, Incineration

Promoting U.S. Economic Growth and Security Through Expanding World Trade: A Call for Bold American Leadership

This report presents a leadership vision of a strong and open global trading system, and urges the United States and its trading partners to adopt vital policy reforms, including delinking agricultural subsidies from prices and production while opening agricultural markets everywhere, and eliminating all tariffs and non-tariff barriers in both manufacturing and services

Economic Dynamics, Emission Trends and the EKC Hypothesis New Evidence Using NAMEA and Provincial Panel Data for Italy

This paper provides new empirical evidence on delinking trends concerning emission-related indicators in Italy. We discuss methodological issues regarding the analysis of delinking and examine the related Environmental Kuznets Curves (EKC) literature to explore and assess the most value added research lines after more than a decade of intensive research in the field. The main contribution of the paper is in providing EKC evidence exploiting environmental-economic merged panel datasets at a decentralized level exploiting long time series and rich cross section heterogeneity at both sectoral and provincial level. This crucially augments the unsatisfactory outcomes deriving from cross country analyses, which are less informative for policy purposes since they provide averages for environmental-economic relationships. Two panel datasets: 1990-2000 emissions at province level; and sectoral disaggregated NAMEA emissions sources for 1990-2001 are analyzed. We find mixed evidence supporting the EKC hypothesis. Some of the pollutants in the NAMEA data, such as CO2, CH4 and CO, produce inverted-U shaped curves with coherent within range turning points. Other emission trends for the period under consideration show monotonic or even N shaped (SOX, NOX, PM10) relationship. Other emissions show relatively less robust results, with mixed evidence arising from different specifications. This partially confirms some of the criticisms directed to EKC empirical investigations. However, our analysis shows that probably there is no single EKC dynamic, but rather many EKC dynamics, differing depending on (i) period of observation; (ii) country/area; (iii) emissions/environmental pressures; (iv) sectors. Sectoral disaggregated analysis highlights that an aggregated outcome should hide some heterogeneity across different sectors. Services tend to present an inverted-N shape in most cases. Manufacturing industry shows a mix of EKC inverted- U and N shapes, depending on the emission considered. The same is true for industry (all industries, not only manufacturing): though a turning point has been experienced, N shapes may lead to increased emissions with respect to very high levels of the income driver. The analysis of provincial data shows that inverted-U shaped curves are present for some of the emissions in the SINAnet- APAT database, such as CH4, NMVOC, CO and PM10, with coherent within range turning points. Other emission trends show a monotonic relationship (CO2 and N2O), or in some cases an inverted-N shaped relationship (SOX and NOX). This kind of analysis at macro sector and/or specific sector level appear to be the most promising and robust field of future research for the assessment of EKC dynamics. National studies grounded in geographical heterogeneity, rather than regional/international analysis, and focused on sectoral trends, are more informative for policy making. The implementation of such investigations needs larger datasets than are currently available. We thus point to the need for increasing and continual effort on constructing integrated environmental/economic statistical accounts.Decoupling, NAMEA Emissions, Economic Drivers, Kuznets Curve, Environmental Efficiency

The dynamics of delinking in industrial emissions: The role of productivity, trade and R&D

This paper provides new empirical evidence on delinking / Environmental Kuznets Curves (EKC) for greenhouse gases and other air pollutant emissions in Italy. We analysed a panel dataset based on the Italian NAMEA for 1990-2005 with a specific focus on industry. We integrated the emission-income NAMEA with data on trade openness and R&D expenditures. The highly disaggregated dataset provides a large heterogeneity and can help to overcome the shortcomings of the usual approach to EKC based on cross-country data. We use in this paper CO2, SOx, NOx and PM10 as objects of investigation. We use as empirical models of reference both a standard EKC model and a STIRPAT/IPAT model. Our results show that looking at sector evidence, both decupling and then eventually re-coupling trends could emerge along the path of economic development. The analysis of how stagnation periods affect environmental performances is also of interest.NAMEA, trade openness, labour productivity, EKC, STIRPAT

Embedding Landfill Diversion in Economic, Geographical and Policy Settings Panel based evidence from Italy

This paper analyses the process of delinking for landfilling trends embedding the dynamics in a frame where economic, geographical and policy variables enter the arena We aim at investigating in depth what main drivers may be responsible for such a phenomenon, and whether differences may be observed focusing the lens on a decentralised provincial based setting. We exploit a rich panel dataset stemming from Official sources (APAT, Italian environmental agency) merged with other provincial and regional based information, covering all the 103 Italian provinces over 1999-2005. The case study on Italy is worth being considered given that Italy is a main country in the EU. Thus it offers important pieces on information on the evaluation of policies. Evidence shows that the observed decoupling between economic growth and landfilling is driven by a mix of structural factors, as population density and other waste management opportunity: local opportunity costs and landfill externalities matter in shaping waste policies and local commitment to landfill diversion. But not only structural factors are relevant. If on the one hand landfill taxation is a significant driver of the phenomenon, even at the more coherent regional level, where the tax is implemented, waste management instruments, when we exploit the provincial dataset, are associated to high significant negative effect on landfilled waste. A good performance on managing waste according to economic rationales helps reducing the amount that is landfilled. In association to the features of the tariff system, we also underline the key role played by the share of separated collection. Both the evolution of collection and tariff system are joint factors that may drive a wedge between the comparative waste performances of northern and southern regions. We finally note that lock in effects linked to the intensity of incinerator sites in the area are relevant for landfilling: past investments in incineration lock in the region in this technological path, which may be associated to less opportunity cost and lower external effects. Summing up, landfill diversion is stronger where the economic cost deriving from high population density, a structural factor, are higher, and waste management collection systems and economic instruments are associated with higher performances.Landfill Policies, Incineration, Landfill Tax, Policy Effectiveness, Waste Management, Delinking, Landfill Trends, Kuznets Curves

A Politics of Peripheries: Deleuze and Guattari as Dependency Theorists

Given that Deleuze and Guattari came to prominence after May 1968, many readers attempt to determine the political significance of their work. The difficulty that some encounter finding its political implications contrasts with Deleuze and Guattari\u27s commitment to radical causes. In response, Patton and Thoburn elaborate on the Marxist elements in the pair\u27s oeuvre, a line of analysis I continue. Focusing on A Thousand Plateaus, I discuss their references to the theorisation of the ‘dependency theorists’, a group of Marxist-inspired scholars who became influential during the 1960s. Does their engagement with dependency theory provide the basis for a political project

The implosion of the contemporary global capitalist system = 当代资本主义体系的内爆

Contemporary capitalism is a capitalism of generalized monopolies. By this I mean that monopolies are now no longer islands (albeit important) in a sea of other still relatively autonomous companies, but are an integrated system. Therefore, these monopolies now tightly control all the systems of production. Small and medium enterprises, and even the large corporations that are not strictly speaking oligopolies are locked in a network of control put in place by the monopolies. Their degree of autonomy has shrunk to the point that they are nothing more than subcontractors of the monopolies. This system of generalized monopolies is the product of a new phase of centralization of capital in the countries of the Triad (theUnited States, Western and Central Europe, andJapan) that took place during the 1980s and 1990s. The generalized monopolies now dominate the world economy. ‘Globalization’ is the name they have given to the set of demands by which they exert their control over the productive systems of the periphery of global capitalism (the world beyond the partners of the triad). It is nothing other than a new stage of imperialism. The capitalism of generalized and globalized monopolies is a system that guarantees these monopolies a monopoly rent levied on the mass of surplus value (transformed into profits) that capital extracts from the exploitation of labour. To the extent that these monopolies are operating in the peripheries of the global system, monopoly rent is imperialist rent. The process of capital accumulation – that defines capitalism in all its successive historical forms – is therefore driven by the maximisation of monopoly/imperialist rent seeking. This shift in the centre of gravity of the accumulation of capital is the source of the continuous concentration of income and wealth to the benefit of the monopolies, largely monopolised by the oligarchies (‘plutocracies’) that govern oligopolistic groups at the expense of the remuneration of labour and even the remuneration of non-monopolistic capital. This imbalance in continued growth is itself, in turn, the source of the financialisation of the economic system. By this I mean that a growing portion of the surplus cannot be invested in the expansion and deepening of systems of production and therefore the ‘financial investment’ of this excessive surplus becomes the only option for continued accumulation under the control of the monopolies. This financialisation, which is responsible for the growth of inequality in income distribution (and fortunes), generates the growing surplus on which it feeds. The ‘financial investments’ (or rather the investments in financial speculation) continue to grow at dizzying speeds, not commensurate with growth in GDP (which is therefore becoming largely fictitious) or with investment in real production. The explosive growth of financial investment requires – and fuels – among other things debt in all its forms, especially sovereign debt. When the governments in power claim to be pursuing the goal of ‘debt reduction’, they are deliberately lying. For the strategy of financialised monopolies requires the growth in debt (which they seek, rather than combat) as a way to absorb the surplus profit of monopolies. The austerity policies imposed ‘to reduce debt’ have indeed resulted (as intended) in increasing its volume. It is this system – commonly called ‘neoliberal’, the system of generalized monopoly capitalism, ‘globalized’ (imperialist) and financialised (of necessity for its own reproduction) – that is imploding before our eyes. This system, apparently unable to overcome its growing internal contradictions, is doomed to continue its wild ride. The historical circumstances created by the implosion of contemporary capitalism requires the radical left, in the North as well as the South, to be bold in formulating its political alternative to the existing system. This moment demands as the only effective response a bold and audacious radicalization in the formulation of alternatives capable of moving workers and peoples to take the offensive to defeat their adversary’s strategy of war. These formulations, based on the analysis of actually existing contemporary capitalism, must directly confront the future that is to be built, and turn their back on the nostalgia for the past and illusions of identity or consensus. 当代资本主义是普遍化垄断的资本主义。即是说，垄断企业再不是在一片相对自主的企业汪洋大海中的孤岛(即便它有多重要)。垄断已经成为一个整合的系统。这些垄断集团紧紧控制所有生产系统。中小型企业，和甚至严格来说不算是寡头的大企业，都被束缚于垄断集团布置的控制网络中。它们的自主性萎缩至只沦为垄断集团的分包人。 在1980-90年代，资本愈益集中于美国、中西欧与日本这三巨头里，而这个普遍化的垄断系统正是资本集中新阶段的产品。 普遍化垄断正主宰全球经济。所谓的“全球化”，是指它们对全球资本主义边缘地区的生产系统施以控制的一系列要求。这无异于帝国主义的新阶段。 普遍化和全球化垄断的资本主义作为一个系统，确保这些垄断集团能从资本剥削劳动所榨取的巨量剩余价值(转化为利润)征收垄断租。这些垄断集团在全球体系的边缘地区运作，即是说垄断租正是帝国主义租。 因此，界定资本主义所有历史形式的资本累积过程，是被极大化垄断／帝国主义寻租所驱动着。 资本累积重心的转移，正是收入与财富不断向垄断集团集中的根源。这些利益大部分被统领其他寡头集团的寡头(富人统治集团)所垄断，为此不惜牺牲劳工应得的报酬，甚至非垄断资本的收益。 这种持续增长中的不平衡，反过来成为经济金融化的根源。即是说愈来愈大部分的剩余价值不再被用来投资于扩张及深化生产系统。因此，在垄断集团的控制下，持续累积的惟一选择是把这些过剩的剩余用作金融投资。 金融化是收入分配日益不平等的原因。它产生不断增长的剩余，而且以此自肥。“金融投资”(或说投资于金融投机)以令人晕眩的速率在膨胀，完全与实体生产投资与GDP增长脱节。GDP增长也愈来愈变成虚拟增长。 金融投资的爆炸性增长需要各种形式的债务作为燃料，尤其是主权债务。霸权国政府声称寻求“减债”，实际上是在故意说谎。因为金融化垄断集团的策略要求通过债务增长来吸纳垄断的剩余利润。所以它们在追逐债务，而不是减债。所谓为了“减债”而强加的紧缩措施，实际上是刻意用来增加债务。 这个体系一般被称为“新自由主义”，实际是普遍化资本主义系统，它是全球化(帝国主义)和金融化(为自我再生产所需)。这个体系正在我们眼前内爆。它明显不能克服其愈益严重的内部矛盾，注定要继续如脱缰野马，到处践踏。 回应当代资本主义内爆的历史时刻，南北世界的激进左派需要大胆提出可以替代这个系统的政治构想。这个历史时刻需要大胆和彻底的另类替代作为惟一有效的回应。它要能推动工人和人民奋起反抗，击败对手诉诸战争的策略。建基于对当代真实资本主义的分析，这些构想需要直面我们要建设的未来，舍弃对过去的眷恋，打破身份认同或共识的幻象

Emissions Trends and Labour Productivity Dynamics Sector Analyses of De-coupling/Recoupling on a 1990-2005 Namea

This paper provides new empirical evidence on Environmental Kuznets Curves (EKC) for greenhouse gases (GHGs) and air pollutants at sector level. A panel dataset based on the Italian NAMEA over 1990-2005 is analysed, focusing on both emission efficiency (EKC model) and total emissions (IPAT model). Results show that looking at sector evidence, both decoupling and also eventually re-coupling trends could emerge along the path of economic development. CH4 is moderately decreasing in recent years, but being a minor gas compared to CO2, the overall performance on GHGs is not compliant with Kyoto targets, which do not appear to have generated a structural break in the dynamics at least for GHGs. SOx and NOx show decreasing patterns, though the shape is affected by some outlier sectors with regard to joint emission-productivity dynamics, and for SOx exogenous innovation and policy related factors may be the main driving force behind observed reductions. Services tend to present stronger delinking patterns across emissions. Trade expansion validates the pollution haven in some cases, but also show negative signs when only EU15 trade is considered: this may due to technology spillovers and a positive ‘race to the top’ rather than the bottom among EU15 trade partners (Italy and Germany as the main exporters and trade partner in the EU). Finally, general R&D expenditure show weak correlation with emissions efficiency. EKC and IPAT derived models provide similar conclusions overall; the emission-labour elasticity estimated in the latter is generally different from 1, suggesting that in most cases, and for both services and industry, a scenario characterised by emissions saving technological dynamics. Further research should be directed towards deeper investigation of trade relationship at sector level, increased research into and efforts to produce specific sectoral data on ‘environmental innovations’, and to verifying the value of heterogeneous panel models capturing sector heterogeneity.Greenhouse Gases, Air Pollutants, NAMEA, Trade Openness, Labour Productivity, EKC, STIRPAT, Delinking