Francesco Ricci, Professeur d'Economie à l'Université de Montpellier

Mardi 18 février 2025, nous accueillons Francesco Ricci, Professeur d'Economie à l'Université de Montpellier et Chercheur au Centre d'Économie de l'Environnement (CEE-M).

Ses domaines de recherches couvrent l'économie de l'environnement et des ressources naturelles et l'économie de l'énergie.

Titre de sa présentation : Matter matters: Efficient recycling policies under tight markets for scrap, article co-écrit avec Miao Dai et Mouez Fodha.

Résumé : We elaborate a model of the market economy, where material inputs are produced by the primary sector as virgin resources or by the recycling sector as secondary resources. We posit a representative structure of the recycling value chain, emphasizing the supply-side linkages between virgin and recycled materials. This case, overlooked in the literature, seems particularly relevant for critical raw materials during the early phase of the energy transition. Two situations can emerge: either some recyclable materials are disposed of as definite waste, or recyclable materials are scarce and get fully recovered. We show that when all the resource contained in end-of-life products is recovered and recycled, the rent associated with the shortfall in recoverable waste is captured by the primary resource sector, through prices. In the presence of market failures, such as negative externalities from waste disposal, the optimal policies can involve either a Pigouvian tax at the source of pollution, a deposit-refund scheme (a combination recycling subsidy and of a tax on the production of either virgin resources or of the final product), or a combination of a tax on final output and of a recycled content standard. We demonstrate that when recyclable materials are scarce, the presence of supply linkages can alter the policy prescriptions. In this case, the optimal policy mix can rely on a single instrument: a tax on primary production or final goods' output, a recycled content standard or even a tax on recycling. However, it is also possible to combine these instruments to choose the allocation of the cost of regulation across actors.

Le séminaire a lieu à 13h30, en salle 227.