Review article
Economic Aspects of the Municipal Waste Management: The Czech Republic and Slovakia
Juraj Nemec
orcid.org/0000-0002-5881-7422
; Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic
Jana Soukopová
; Assistant Professor, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic
Beata Mikušová Meričková
; Faculty of Economics, University of Matej Bel, Banska Bystrica, Slovakia
Abstract
This paper provides data from our long-term research about municipal waste management in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Three issues are the covered – scale and results from contracting out, impact of competition of costs (the relationship between the unfair competition and municipal waste cost in the Czech Republic), and economies of scale in the Czech Republic. From the point of view of forms of waste management service, despite the methodological problems, the research does not confirm priority of contracting out and suggests that the decisions about the best form of local service provision should respect local conditions and not any universal pattern. The authors also show that lack of competition is one of the main causes of the limited results obtained by contracting. The specific data from the South Moravian Region and the Pardubice Region have shown that results of competitive environment analysis could be affected by the existence of cartel. The results of the analysis of the economies of scale in waste management in the Czech Republic indicate that the bottom of the cost curve is to be found at about 2,000 inhabitants. Moreover, the cost curve in the Czech
Republic is not a classic U-shaped curve. The U-shaped curve appears only for small municipalities, and disappears for larger settlements.
Keywords
waste management; municipalities; Czech Republic; Slovakia; efficiency; competition; economies of scale, contracting out
Hrčak ID:
149565
URI
Publication date:
16.9.2015.
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