IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ira/wpaper/202501.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does It Take More Than One Village? The Effect of Inter-Municipal Cooperation on Waste Separation

Author

Listed:
  • Germà Bel

    (GiM-IREA, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.)

  • Joël Bühler

    (GiM-IREA, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.)

Abstract

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-in-differences framework, we find that municipalities moving into IMC decrease non-separated 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Germà Bel & Joël Bühler, 2025. "Does It Take More Than One Village? The Effect of Inter-Municipal Cooperation on Waste Separation," IREA Working Papers 202501, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ira:wpaper:202501
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ub.edu/irea/working_papers/2025/202501.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hilary W. Hoynes & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2009. "Consumption Responses to In-Kind Transfers: Evidence from the Introduction of the Food Stamp Program," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 109-139, October.
    2. Katarina Sandberg, 2024. "The more the merrier? Examining the effects of inter-municipal cooperation on costs and service quality in upper secondary education," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(2), pages 225-248, April.
    3. Kirill Borusyak & Xavier Jaravel & Jann Spiess, 2024. "Revisiting Event-Study Designs: Robust and Efficient Estimation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(6), pages 3253-3285.
    4. Dmitry Arkhangelsky & Guido Imbens, 2024. "Causal models for longitudinal and panel data: a survey," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 27(3), pages 1-61.
    5. Molly Lipscomb & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, 2017. "Decentralization and Pollution Spillovers: Evidence from the Re-drawing of County Borders in Brazil," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 464-502.
    6. Cerqua, Augusto & Fiorino, Nadia & Galli, Emma, 2024. "Do green parties affect local waste management policies?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    7. Brian Chi-ang Lin & Siqi Zheng & Marie Briguglio, 2016. "Household Cooperation In Waste Management: Initial Conditions And Intervention," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 497-525, July.
    8. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    9. Jonathan Roth, 2024. "Interpreting Event-Studies from Recent Difference-in-Differences Methods," Papers 2401.12309, arXiv.org.
    10. Kyle Butts & John Gardner, 2021. "{did2s}: Two-Stage Difference-in-Differences," Papers 2109.05913, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    11. Marthe L. Holum & Tor G. Jakobsen, 2016. "Inter-Municipal Cooperation and Satisfaction with Services: Evidence from the Norwegian Citizen Study," International Journal of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(8), pages 597-609, July.
    12. Dmitry Arkhangelsky & Guido Imbens, 2023. "Causal Models for Longitudinal and Panel Data: A Survey," Papers 2311.15458, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    13. Massimiliano Ferraresi & Giuseppe Migali & Leonzio Rizzo, 2018. "Does intermunicipal cooperation promote efficiency gains? Evidence from Italian municipal unions," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(5), pages 1017-1044, November.
    14. Jisun Youm & Richard C. Feiock, 2019. "Interlocal collaboration and local climate protection," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(6), pages 777-802, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ben Deaner & Chen-Wei Hsiang & Andrei Zeleneev, 2025. "Inferring Treatment Effects in Large Panels by Uncovering Latent Similarities," Papers 2503.20769, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2025.
    2. Balia, S.; & Brau, R.; & Pau, S.;, 2025. "One plus one makes less than two? Consolidation policies and mortality in the Italian NHS," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 25/02, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Adamson Bryant, 2025. "Place-Based Policies for Neighborhood Improvement: Evidence from Promise Zones," Papers 2503.05946, arXiv.org.
    4. Gregory Faletto, 2023. "Fused Extended Two-Way Fixed Effects for Difference-in-Differences With Staggered Adoptions," Papers 2312.05985, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2025.
    5. Ninon Moreau-Kastler, 2025. "Proportional Treatment Effects in Staggered Settings: An Approach for Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood," Working Papers 031, EU Tax Observatory.
    6. Ruonan Xu & Luther Yap, 2024. "Clustering with Potential Multidimensionality: Inference and Practice," Papers 2411.13372, arXiv.org.
    7. Martin, Diego A. & Romero, Dario A., 2024. "Social distancing and COVID-19 under violence: Evidence from Colombia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    8. Cassidy, Traviss & Velayudhan, Tejaswi, 2022. "Government Fragmentation and Economic Growth," MPRA Paper 112045, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Fang, Francis Haoyu & Vlaicu, Razvan, 2024. "Local Banking Supply and Private Firm Activity: Evidence from Branch Closures," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13645, Inter-American Development Bank.
    10. Mac Clay, Pablo & Börner, Jan & Sellare, Jorge, 2023. "Institutional and macroeconomic stability mediate the effect of auctions on renewable energy capacity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    11. Ricardo Dahis & Christiane Szerman, 2023. "Decentralizing Development: Evidence from Government Splits," Monash Economics Working Papers 2023-18, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    12. Biasi, Barbara & Sandholtz, Wayne Aaron, 2025. "The Political Consequences of Controversial Education Reform: Lessons from Wisconsin’s Act 10," IZA Discussion Papers 17836, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Arne Henningsen & Guy Low & David Wuepper & Tobias Dalhaus & Hugo Storm & Dagim Belay & Stefan Hirsch, 2024. "Estimating Causal Effects with Observational Data: Guidelines for Agricultural and Applied Economists," IFRO Working Paper 2024/03, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    14. Bradford, Ashley C. & Fu, Wei & You, Shijun, 2024. "The devastating dance between opioid and housing crises: Evidence from OxyContin reformulation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    15. Jack (Peiyao) Ma & Andrea Mantovani & Carlo Reggiani & Annette Broocks & Néstor Duch-Brown, 2024. "The Price Effects of Prohibiting Price Parity Clauses: Evidence from International Hotel Groups," Economics Series Working Papers 1043, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    16. Valentin Cocco & Raja Chakir & Lauriane Mouysset, 2025. "Guilty or scapegoat? Land consolidation and the hedgerow decline [Coupable ou bouc émissaire ? Le remembrement et le déclin des haies]," Post-Print hal-04658788, HAL.
    17. Guy Lacroix & Pierre-Carl Michaud, 2024. "Tax Incentives and Older Workers: Evidence from Canada," CIRANO Working Papers 2024s-06, CIRANO.
    18. Eren Gürer & Erol Taymaz, 2025. "Skill-biased Wage Effects of Domestic Outsourcing," ERC Working Papers 2501, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Mar 2025.
    19. Jerg Gutmann & Pascal Langer & Matthias Neuenkirch, 2024. "International Sanctions and Corruption," Research Papers in Economics 2025-06, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    20. Guo, Shijun & Hu, Fang, 2025. "Catalyzing transparency: Proactive enforcement of information disclosure and its impact on stock price synchronicity," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ira:wpaper:202501. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alicia García (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feubaes.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.