Title: Urban returns to scale and environmental resources: an estimate of environmental externalities in an urban production function

Authors: Roberta Capello

Addresses: Dept of Economics, Politecnico of Milan, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32, 20133 Milan, Italy

Abstract: The paper deals with the measurement of the economic advantages and environmental disadvantages of an urban setting. Based on a large sample of Italian cities, the paper provides results from an estimate of an urban production function which contains, in addition to the traditional labour and capital production factors, a variable representing the environmental resource consumption and the negative environmental externalities associated with urban life. A major result highlighted in the paper is that cities have in themselves mechanisms to favour an efficient consumption of environmental resources; however, the use of these resources has a cost in terms of environmental output, of negative externalities that are generated on the environment and which become worse by increasing the urban size.

Keywords: economies of scale; environmental externalities; environmental resource consumption; urban size.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.1998.002229

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 1998 Vol.10 No.1, pp.28-46

Published online: 12 Aug 2003 *

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