Abstract

The achievement of an efficient recycling level requires two steps to be undertaken: i) the internalization of external costs generated by incorrect waste management practices; ii) the removal of market failures in secondary material markets. This paper focuses mainly on the second issue. We provide, in particular, an overview of market failures related to the presence of informational asymmetries and various kinds of market power. The main conclusion is that no one-size-fits-all solution exists: the optimal recycling markets structure, as well as the policies to achieve efficiency, strongly depend on the involved secondary material, as well as on the features of the economy under scrutiny.