Conference Agenda

In this study, we investigate the socio-economic effects of further activating the circular value chain for clothing on the labour market in the Netherlands. Our focus is on the clothing value chain in a small open economy (The Netherlands) for which we develop a value chain model to evaluate the direct gross effects of changes in production, consumption, and end-of-life activities and map the value chain. Further, we evaluate both the Dutch government's scenarios for a circular economy and a set of circular objectives that lead to an optimised projection for 2050. The results show that the circular value chain for clothing can have positive effects on the labour market in the Netherlands, including creating new jobs, upscaling existing ones, and promoting sustainability. However, focusing solely on job creation may backfire and may not lead to the best circular outcomes.

In this study, we examine the impact of social norms, peer effects, and accessibility of recycling facilities on the recycling behavior of households. We construct a spatial equilibrium model that accounts for both households' choices of residence location and the social norms in their decisions regarding the level of effort they put into recycling activities.

To structurally estimate the model, we use spatial data from Sweden and survey data from the OECD Environmental Policy and Individual Behavior Change. Our results demonstrate that social norms have a substantial impact on recycling behavior.

We then use the estimated model to analyze the effectiveness of various environmental policies aimed at promoting recycling and improving household waste management. This analysis helps identify the most efficient policies for achieving these goals.

This study addresses the challenges of environmental pollution and resource scarcity in traditional production models, highlighting the circular economy as a viable solution. We explore the circular economy's potential to reduce pollution and serve as an alternative to resource scarcity, employing a theoretical model. The model compares various intertemporal elasticity of substitution values for primary resources and examines the impact of the absence of recycling activities on market dynamics. Our findings indicate that recycling and virgin resource usage are aligned under elastic intertemporal substitution, but inversely related under inelastic substitution. The study emphasizes the need for social planner intervention at levels commensurate with production-related externalities. By integrating intertemporal substitution, providing a comprehensive model solution, and applying numerical analysis to theoretical findings, our research contributes significantly to the discourse on resource extraction and the circular economy.

As the European regulation on plastics waste fosters the use of recycled polymers instead of virgin ones, the relationship between primary and secondary plastics markets is of high interest. Because of competition and substitution effects, these two markets are closely interrelated. Their links are highly influenced by their grades which determine their technical substitutability. When the recyclate has similar properties to its virgin counterpart, their demands are more likely interconnected, as well as their prices. To estimate the influence of these technical characteristics on substitution effects, cross-price elasticities between a large range of plastics are calculated with non stationary panel methods. Long and short run parameters are estimated using FMOLS, DOLS and PMG estimators for 23 sorts of recyclates between 2002 and 2019. The results show that virgin plastics has a higher influence on the price of recycled plastics than naphtha or plastics waste, and put in evidence a distinction between common and technical plastics.