The Decoupling of Affluence and Waste Discharge under Spatial Correlation: Do Richer Communities Discharge More Waste?

経済学 / EconomicsAlthough there are many studies on the environmental Kuznets curve, very few of them address municipal solid waste cases, and there is still controversy concerning the validity of the waste Kuznets curve hypothesis. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence for the waste Kuznets curve hypothesis by applying spatial econometrics methods to municipal-level data in Japan. To our knowledge, this is the first study that finds valid evidence for the waste Kuznets curve hypothesis in the absolute decoupling manner. The successful result owes in part to our highly disaggregated data and also to the use of a spatial econometric model that takes into account the mimicking behavior among neighboring municipalities. The former indicates that distinguishing between household and business waste is the key to revealing the waste–income relationship, while the latter implies the importance of peer effects when municipal governments formulate waste-reduction policies.http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/yoshida_yuichiro

Reexamining the waste-income relationship

経済学 / EconomicsEven though many studies on Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), are following a seminal work by Grossman and Krueger (1991), limited studies are available for municipal solid waste’s cases (WKC). Mazzanti and Montini eds. (2009) is a first comprehensive study of WKC with European data. More importantly, they define a absolute decoupling as ‘descending side of an inverted U shape’ and relative decoupling as ‘ascending path of an inverted U shape. In this paper, we add a new evidence for WKC by using municipal solid waste’s data in Japan. The successful result was derived due to highly disaggregated data as was suggested by Mazzanti and Zoboli (2009) as well as the richness of data set.http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/yoshida_yuichiro

Economic Geography and Productive Efficiency of Solid-Waste Logistics in Japan\u27s Prefectures: Measurements via the Data Envelopment Analysis

経済学 / EconomicsThis paper measures the productive efficiency of the municipal-solid-waste (MSW) logistics by applying the data envelopment analysis (DEA) to the cross-sectional data of prefectures in Japan. Either through public operation or by outsourcing private waste-collection operators, prefectural governments possess the fundamental authority of waste-processing operation in Japan. We thus estimate a multi-input-multi-output production efficiency at the prefectural level via DEA, where several different model settings are employed. Our data classify the volume of MSW into household solid waste (HSW) and business solid waste (BSW) collected by both private and public operators as separate outputs, while the numbers of trucks and workers used by private and public operators enter as inputs. Results consistently show that the geographical characteristics such that the number of inhabited remote islands is relatively larger than others is a dominant factor determining the inefficiency. While the implication that in these small islands minimum efficient scale is not achieved is in accord to the literature that waste logistics is increasing-return at the municipal level, our results indicate that the production of waste collection in Japan is well described as CRS technology at the prefectural level. Results also show that the prefectures that are inefficient in MSW logistics have higher spatial correlation with their neighbors both in terms of waste collection efficiency and the volume of illegal dumping of industrial waste.JEL Classification Codes: R49, R59, Q53http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/yoshida_yuichiro