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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/219157
Does It Take More Than One Village? The Effect of Inter-Municipal Cooperation on Waste Separation
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Municipalities increasingly cooperate with one another to improve their public services. In this study, we estimate the causal effect of Inter-Municipal Cooperation (IMC) on the environmental performance of waste collection in Catalonia. Using a difference-indifferences framework, we find that municipalities moving into IMC decrease nonseparated waste per capita and increase the share of waste separation. However, when taking into account potential selection into treatment, a causal effect is present only in a sub-period after a strong hike in the landfill tax, and particularly for municipalities switching after this tax hike. This points to IMC’s potential to use technical capability and economies of scale for a more pronounced and rapid reaction, enhancing the effectiveness of higher-level policy. In contrast, absent the landfill tax, IMC seems to have offered limited improvement in environmental performance, suggesting at most a secondary role for internalization of local environmental spillovers..
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BEL I QUERALT, Germà and BÜHLER, Joël. Does It Take More Than One Village? The Effect of Inter-Municipal Cooperation on Waste Separation. IREA – Working Papers. 2024. Vol. IR25/01. [consulted: 16 of June of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/219157