European waste management regulations and the transition towards circular economy. A shift-and-share analysis.

Environmental legislation in the European Union (EU) aims to bolster the transition towards circular economy. However, a recurring limitation in EU regulations, encompassing not only environmental but also economic, social, and demographic aspects, is the lack of consideration for the unique characteristics of individual Member States when establishing common targets. The present work seeks to investigate the impact of EU waste management regulations on the attainment of circular economy objectives, taking into account national-level socio-economic and demographic characteristics. In order to do so, we employ Shift-and-Share Analysis, using data on 28 EU countries between 1995 and 2018. Our findings indicate that some Member States, namely Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and Slovenia, effectively managed to align their regulatory frameworks with EU directives and create a socio-economic context where citizens and governmental bodies foster the necessary levels of cooperation. Cooperation in turn, with widespread pro-environmental attitudes on part of citizens, efficient waste management on part of specialised firms and proper oversight of waste collection activities on part of institutions, facilitated the achievement of significant circular economy goals.

Campania and cancer mortality: An inseparable pair? The role of environmental quality and socio-economic deprivation.

The region of Campania in Southern Italy features high levels of socio-economic deprivation and low levels of environmental quality. A vast strand of the scientific literature has tried to verify whether poor environmental quality and widespread socio-economic deprivation might explain the high cancer mortality rates (CMRs) observed, especially in the municipalities - infamously labelled as the 'Land of Fires' - that were hit most severely by the crisis. While some studies managed to identify links between these two confounding factors and cancer mortality, the evidence is overall mixed. Interesting information may be drawn from the observation of municipal data: in spite of previous claims, some municipalities featuring high environmental quality and low socio-economic deprivation also display high CMRs, while other Campanian municipalities facing disastrous environmental and socio-economic conditions are characterised by low CMRs. These figures, in contrast to common sentiment and previous studies, need to be investigated thoroughly in order to assess the exact role of the confounding factors. In this work, we aim to identify the municipalities where confounding factors act as driving forces in the determination of high CMRs through an original multi-step analysis based on frequentist and Bayesian analysis. Pinpointing these municipalities could allow policymakers to design targeted and effective policy measures aimed at reducing cancer mortality.

Inequality and regressivity in Italian waste taxation. Is there an alternative route?

The Italian financing system for waste collection and disposal services, still far from a price-based system at the national level, is similar to a real property tax system. Among other concerns, this raises equity issues. The aim of this paper is threefold. First, the structure of the waste tax in its components (i.e., fixed and variable) is analysed at the provincial level. This allows to investigate the magnitude of the two tax components in Italian provinces, while showing the differences among macro-areas in the financing system for waste collection and disposal services. Second, the regressivity (progressivity) of the tax system adopted is investigated, so as to highlight the differences among geographical areas. Third, an alternative base for the waste tax is proposed, in order to avoid regressivity and achieve higher equality. For these purposes, official data referring to 2017 are used and a Geographically Weighted Regression is implemented. The results highlight the importance of an alternative base of the waste tax to design an equal and non-regressive tax, more similar to a Pay-As-You-Throw scheme.

Proximity effects in obesity rates in the US: A Spatial Markov Chains approach.

In this paper, we investigate, by means of a Spatial Markov Chains approach, the existence of proximity effects at State level for US data on obesity rates in the period 1990-2011. We find that proximity effects do play an important role in the spatial diffusion of obesity (the obesity 'epidemics'), and that the actual health geography of nearby States in terms of high vs. low obesity rates makes an important difference as to the future evolution of the State's own obesity rate over time. This means, in particular, that clusters of States characterized by uniformly high levels of obesity rates, as it happens for instance in the US Southern macro-region, may suffer from a perverse 'geographical lock-in' effect that calls for coordinated action across States to implement effective countervailing policies.

Policy efficiency in the field of food sustainability. The adjusted food agriculture and nutrition index.

This work introduces a revised version of the Food Sustainability Index, proposed by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition in 2016. Our Adjusted Food Sustainability Index features two important advantages: 1) it employs the Mazziotta-Pareto method to compute weights, hence granting an objective aggregation criterion and 2) it does not take policy variables into account, thus focusing on the status quo. The policy variables are aggregated into the Policy Index, measuring the quality of the food sustainability policies. We compute the two indices for 25 countries worldwide, then we use the Data Envelopment Analysis to evaluate policy efficiency. Our results show that country-level variation in policy efficiency is wide and policies affect food sustainability significantly, especially when they target nutritional challenges.

Cancer mortality rates and spillover effects among different areas: A case study in Campania (southern Italy).

The present study analyses the spatial distribution of cancer mortality rates in Campania (an Italian region with the highest population density), in which residents in several areas are exposed to major environmental health hazards. The paper has the methodological aims of verifying the existence, or otherwise, of a spatial correlation between mortality from different types of cancer and the occurrence of some specific area characteristics, using both Bayesian statistics and spatial econometrics. We show that the use of the Spatial Empirical Bayes Smoothed Rate, instead of the more commonly used Raw Rate, allows a more comprehensive analysis of the mortality rate, highlighting the existence of different cluster sizes throughout the region, according to the type of cancer mortality rate analysed. By using a Spatial Durbin model we verify that cancer mortality rates are related to the environmental characteristics of specific areas with spatial spillover effects. Our results validate the hypothesis that living along the coast by Mt Vesuvius and, to a lesser extent, along the Domitio-Flegreo coast NW of Naples and in more urbanised municipalities, increases the risk of dying of cancer. By contrast, living in less urbanised municipalities, with the presence of natural and historical attractions, has a positive effect on the residents' health, reducing their risk of disease. In both cases significant spillover effects (negative and positive) are found in municipalities close to the areas in question. Despite a number of reasonable limitations, our findings may provide useful information support for policy makers to foster knowledge, awareness and informed participation of citizens.