Waste management performance in Italian provinces: Efficiency and spatial effects of local governments and citizen action

Abstract This paper investigates the waste management performance of Italian provinces in the period 2004–2011. An efficiency analysis through DEA is first implemented in order to assign efficiency scores both to local administrations and citizens. The presence of spatial interdependencies in the waste management performance of governments and citizens together with the persistence of good/bad performance in waste management distribution is then tested. Our results highlight the presence of two clusters showing better performance in north-eastern and southern Italy. The provinces in central Italy performed poorly. A positive spatial correlation for efficiency scores is then found. An interesting result, also for policy makers, is that the joint action of local institutions and citizens reduces the differences between “good” and “bad” provinces, stimulating a convergence process towards better waste management performance. The waste management process is optimised when both citizens and local government behave appropriately.