Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Municipal waste generation remains a persistent sustainability challenge, even in countries with strong environmental governance and circular economy ambitions. Yet it remains unclear how affluence, household final consumption expenditure as a share of GDP, digitalization, innovation, urbanization, and recycling relate to waste generation in advanced economies. This study examines associations between per capita municipal waste generation and GDP per capita, household final consumption expenditure as a share of GDP, digital infrastructure, patent applications, urbanization, and recycling rates across five Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—over 2000–2024. The analysis combines tests for cross-sectional dependence, slope heterogeneity, unit roots, and cointegration with a fixed-effects model estimated using Driscoll–Kraay standard errors as the main specification, alongside PCSE, FGLS, and leave-one-country-out robustness checks. The Dumitrescu–Hurlin procedure is also used to assess directional predictability. The results show that associations involving GDP per capita, patent applications, and urbanization are sensitive to model specification, year controls, and sample composition. In simpler pooled models and specifications without year effects, GDP per capita and urbanization are often positively associated with municipal waste generation, but these relationships weaken once common time effects are absorbed. Patent applications are positive in some regressions, but their sign and significance are unstable across estimators. Household consumption, digital infrastructure, and recycling do not show consistently stable associations. Overall, the findings are best interpreted as panel associations in levels rather than definitive long-run relationships.
Source: Waste Management Bulletin
Institutions: Arkın Yaratıcı Sanatlar ve Tasarım Üniversitesi, Noakhali Science and Technology University, ETH Zurich, Wuhan University, Bahçeşehir Cyprus University, Chitkara University, Bukhara State University, Termez University of Economics and Service, University of Tashkent for Applied Sciences, Tashkent State University of Economics, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Universitas Airlangga, Universidad Panamericana, campus Aguascalientes, Universidad Panamericana
Language: English
Subfield: Waste Management and Disposal
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,050
Funder: Universitas Airlangga
OpenAlex ID: W7223239506