Waste-to-energy (WtE) could prevent the production of up to 50 million tons of CO₂ emissions that would otherwise be generated by burning fossil fuels. Yet, support for a large deployment of WtE plants is not universal because there is a widespread concern that energy from waste discourages recycling practices. Moreover, incineration plants generate air pollution and chemical waste residuals and are expensive to build compared to modern landfills that have appropriate procedures for the prevention of leakage of harmful gasses. In the context of the EU, this paper aims to provide a picture of the actual role of WtE as a disposal option for municipal solid waste (MSW), enabling it to be utilized as a source of clean energy, and to address two important aspects of the debate surrounding the use of WtE; namely, (i) the relationship between WtE and recycling, and (ii) the effects of decentralization, waste mobility, and plant ownership. Finally, it reviews the role of the EU as a supranational regulator, which may allow the lower government levels (where consumer preferences are better represented) to take decisions, while taking spillovers into account.

Through time, spatial competition has become the natural environment for studying a number of problems, ranging from product differentiation to mail order versus traditional business, to service provision under various assumptions about the institutional setting. Health economics research has greatly benefited from the intuitions that underlie the Hotelling model and several authors have contributed to the literature on the architecture of the market for health care by proposing models within this framework. In this paper we explore how spatial competition has been used in health economics to improve the knowledge of the mechanisms of the market for health care through the derivation of significant policy implications. One of the most important messages is that in spite of competition, the regulator still should have a central role in the architecture of the market and policies have to be carefully tailored in order to avoid the onset of perverse, undesired effects on quality and welfare.