Francesco Silvestri

Municipal Waste Selection and Disposal: Evidences from Lombardy

This article exploit a data base of 1.522 observations related to Lombardy’s municipalities to run a cross sectional estimation of the drivers of MW selection. We find no evidence of a significant correlation between the percentage of selected MW selection and market variables such as the unit charge for waste management, a result probably affected by the high degree of integration existing in Lombardy among collectors and disposal operators. On the contrary, we discover robust and significant correlation with a set of geographical, socio-economic, and political variables. Among the latter ones, we have a confirmations on the influence of party competition on the percentage of household recycling, with the left wing ruling parties more addressed to it than the rivals, and on the high correlation existing between MW selection and the implementation of a unit pricing scheme. Other positive correlations with the independent variable are shown by per-capita income, while quite surprisingly the education level of citizens seems to play no role.

Municipal Waste Collection: Market Competition and the EU Policy

Two of the main pillars of the EU waste collection policy are the Proximity Principle and Self-Sufficiency Principle. According to those, waste should be disposed as close as possible to where it has been produced. The effect of such provision is to increase the market power of local disposers, with possible undesirable consequences for other firms in the vertical chain. We show through a simple spatial model that one effect of the Proximity Principle and Self-Sufficiency Principle is to provide an incentive to collectors and waste producers to increase the amount of separated waste.

Nature, Landscape and Energy: The Energy Masterplan of Emilia-Romagna Po Delta Regional Park

In the last years, natural parks seem to be affected by a growing interest in energy planning. This attitude is easily explicable with a willingness to contribute to CO2 reduction, to struggle against climate change, to promote virtuous patterns in energy efficiency, to preserve territory from landscape impacts that energy production equipment could generate (solar fields, wind poles, obliged modification in local agriculture to feed bioenergy plants). This contribution depicts how energy planning is handled by natural parks. After a brief review of the still few existing projects throughout Europe, we focus on the experience run by the Emilia-Romagna Regional Park Po Delta, the first one in Italy to design a real strategic plan for sustainable energy, with guidelines and prescriptions on landscape and nature conservation. The emerging picture offers insights on different issues – why should a natural park deal with energy planning, how to design this kind of actions in a protected area, and which role is assigned to planning and regulation – to incentive schemes and public goods provision.

Nautical tourism, carrying capac ity and environmental externality in a protected Lagoon of Northern Adriatic Sea

Tourism and environmental preservation are often conflicting activities, mainly in coastal lagoons, where seaside mass-tourism comes into contact with a very sensitive ecological system. In this paper we deal with a classical problem of both environmental and tourism economics, the internalization of environmental costs of tourism, focusing on the nautical fruition of the Lagoon of Marano and Grado (North-Eastern Italy, Friuli Venezia Giulia Region). Using different instruments, both theoretical (Carrying Capacity framework, Polluter-Payer principle, Coase compensation) and empirical (Log-log regression, Forecasting model, CBA with defensive expenditures and actual market values), we ascertained the result that - given the current nautical berths endowment - a standard Coase equilibrium (unit external cost equal to unit private benefit) does not hold, and a higher number of vessels transiting in the Lagoon is more effective than a tempered fruition for nature conservation. Another interesting result is that the best available solution to internalize environmental externality is a mixed one, combining a command and control rule (a speed-limit prescription) with a Coasian compensation scheme. All the technical theoretical and empirical derivations are reported in Appendix A (Pressure Parameter Calculation), Appendix B (Benefit and Cost Calculation), and Appendix C (Data set and Econometric Tests).

Nautical Tourism, Carrying Capacity and Environmental Externality in the Lagoon of Marano and Grado

Tourism and environmental preservation are often conflicting activities, mainly in areas such as coastal lagoons, where seaside mass-tourism comes into contact with a very sensitive ecological system. In this paper we deal with a classical problem of both environmental and tourism economics, the internalization of environmental costs of tourism, focusing on the nautical fruition of the Lagoon of Marano and Grado (North-Eastern Italy, Friuli Venezia Giulia Region). Using different instruments, both theoretical (Carrying Capacity framework, Polluter-Payer principle, Coase compensation) and empirical (Cluster analysis, Log-log regression, Forecasting model, cost and benefit calculation through actual market values), we get the result that a standard Coasian equilibrium (unit external cost equal to unit private benefit) doesn’t hold, and a higher coverage of the local berths endowment (i. e. a higher vessels transit in the Lagoon) is more effective for nature conservation than a tempered fruition. Another interesting result is that the best available solution to internalize environmental externality is a mixed one, comprehensive of a command and control rule (a speed-limit prescription), and a compensation scheme.