An Econometric Analysis of Global Waste Paper Recovery and Utilization

Christer Berglund and Patrik Söderholm

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2003, vol. 26, issue 3, 429-456

Abstract: The main purpose of this paper is to provide aneconometric analysis of the most importantdeterminants of inter-country differences inwaste paper recovery and utilization rates. Byemploying pooled time series and cross-sectiondata over 49 countries worldwide and sevenyears, the paper concludes that relative wastepaper recovery and use depend largely onlong-standing economic factors such aspopulation intensity and competitiveness in theworld market for paper and board products. Wealso find evidence that supports the conjecturethat rich countries tend to recover relativelymore waste paper than is the case in low-incomecountries, reflecting the higher demand forwaste management and environmental policies inmore developed economies. As recovery andutilization rates are determined by economicand demographic characteristics the degree ofpolicy flexibility in affecting these rates maybe limited. In particular, an ambitiousutilization rate target may be very costly toenforce as it can conflict with existing tradepatterns of paper and board products as well aswith other environmental goals. Additionalpolicy targets may therefore be desirable,especially since paper recycling is motivatedprimarily by environmental concerns and seldomis a benign activity in itself. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2003

Keywords: inter-country differences; recovery rate; utilization rate; waste paper (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/B:EARE.0000003595.60196.a9 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:enreec:v:26:y:2003:i:3:p:429-456

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... al/journal/10640/PS2

DOI: 10.1023/B:EARE.0000003595.60196.a9

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental & Resource Economics is currently edited by Ian J. Bateman

More articles in Environmental & Resource Economics from Springer, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().