Is Environmental Regulation affecting the exports of e-waste? Evidence from European Union Countries

• Autor(a) principal: Lopes, Leonardo Baptista de Sá
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/12694
• topic: Ambiente; Economia Circular; Lixo Eletrónico; Reciclagem; Regulação de Transporte de Resíduos; União Europeia; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia

Waste generated from electrical and electronic equipment, usually known as e-waste, is increasing worldwide. Developed countries like the ones on Europe, produce the most ewaste generated worldwide and therefore, rely on exporting it to other countries as a means of waste management/disposal. As Europe is transiting towards a Circular Economy and tackle environmental related problem, there has been an increase in environmental policies and regulations within the European Union. This paper presents an overview of how the European Union's regulation has affected the exporting level. To achieve this, yearly data from 2010 to 2018, for a panel of 18 European Union countries were analysed, using the PCSE (Panel-Corrected Standard Error) estimator. In order to measure environmental regulation, Environmental taxes Revenue from the manufacture of computers, electronic, and optical products were selected. The findings of this paper suggest that taxation is not effective in reducing the export of e-waste. Furthermore, the economic growth reduces the exports, which could mean that the European richer countries export less waste than poorer countries. It was also proved that recycling is a viable option to reduce the exports of e-waste. Expanding the recycling level in Europe would also mean that the dependency that EU countries have on imported raw material would diminish because existing raw material on electronic equipment would be reused and not lost. Lowering the dependency on foreign raw materials would also mean lowering the export of e-waste.