Conference Agenda

This paper examines the impact of China’s National Sword Policy on European recy-

cling performances. Implemented in 2018, the policy imposed strict restrictions on waste imports across numerous waste materials, creating an exogenous shock to European recycling performances. Since European recycling rates—a legal obligation—include exports for recycling, this policy created a significant shock to European waste management. Using panel data on packaging recycling rates by material and country and trade data, we implement a Differences-in-Differences strategy that exploits variation in exposure across materials. We find that recycling rates for paper, plastics and wood declined significantly following the ban. These results demonstrate the dependence of European recycling performance on foreign recycling capacity prior to the policy change. In a subsequent step, this paper will evaluate technological responses from European countries using patent data on recycling-related innovations.

We study a novel channel of policy-induced innovation operating through global environmental interdependence. In 2018, China abruptly banned most imports of foreign waste, disrupting global material flows and forcing exporting countries to internalize disposal constraints. Exploiting this policy as an exogenous shock, we examine its impact on plastics-related innovation in Europe. We combine patent data with country-level exposure to the ban for EU member states and Great Britain from 2009 to 2021, using a text-based approach to identify environmentally oriented plastics innovations that standard classifications poorly capture. We find that the ban triggered a marked reorientation of European technological effort toward plastics recycling and eco-alternatives, accompanied by a decline in reliance on foreign technology transfers. The magnitude and composition of this response vary systematically with countries’ pre-ban exposure through waste exports and plastics production. Our results show that foreign environmental policies can induce domestic innovation not by expanding export opportunities or tightening domestic regulation, but by imposing material constraints that reshape domestic market needs. The findings highlight a reverse channel of international environmental spillovers and suggest broader implications for innovation dynamics as emerging economies increasingly impose environmental constraints on global material flows.

In the debate on international waste trade, the focus on resource efficiency and recycling has gradually begun to accompany the focus on negative environmental externalities. In this context, we examine the impact of extended producer responsibility (EPR) on the export of waste batteries (WB). EPR is considered as a key policy for the “marketization of waste”. WB are a hazardous waste that also contain a high concentration of critical raw materials. As such, they are of strategic importance for the recovery of critical resources, while at the same time requiring proper environmental management. Therefore, it is crucial to understand where WB are treated and how this is affected by related policies. Our results, based on difference-in-difference models in a gravity framework, show a consistent increase in WB exports after EPR implementation compared to the trend for other wastes. This result is likely to be an indirect consequence of the ability of EPR to support growth in waste collection rates, more accurate tracking of transboundary waste flows, and specialization of national waste management systems. In particular, WB exports appear to be directed to countries with more advanced waste management systems, more stringent environmental regulations, and limited endowments of the mineral resources typically contained in batteries.

Climate policies do not operate in isolation but propagate through global production networks, affecting industries beyond national borders. This paper combines international input-output data with a granular instrumental variable approach to capture how foreign regulations transmit through upstream and downstream linkages. Distinguishing between market-based policies, non-market regulations, and technology support, the analysis shows that foreign climate policies can enhance domestic productivity, with effects shaped by industry characteristics and operating through technological adjustment along supply chains. The results underscore the importance of accounting for international spillovers when evaluating the economic impact of environmental regulation.