Material Heterogeneity and Waste-Trade Networks in EU-27 Circular-Economy Convergence

Abstract

EU monitoring summarizes circular-economy progress with aggregate indicators, although material-specific adjustment and cross-border secondary-resource links may follow different paths. This study examines convergence across the EU-27, heterogeneity among biomass, metal ores, non-metallic minerals, and fossil-energy materials, and network-conditional spatial associations. We assemble country-year and material-country-year panels for 2010–2024 (405 and 1620 observations) from Eurostat, bilateral waste-trade data, strategy-adoption dates, and socioeconomic controls. Sigma, cross-sectional and panel beta, and Phillips–Sul tests characterize convergence; two-way fixed-effects SAR, SEM, and SDM specifications use a fixed 2010–2012 total-waste matrix, and a Eurostat Comext mineral-recyclables matrix supports the MF3 analysis. Cross-sectional beta convergence in DMC per capita is detected for metal ores (β = −0.0181, p = 0.037; implied speed 2.08% per year) and fossil-energy materials (β = −0.0206, p < 0.001; 2.44%), but not for biomass or non-metallic minerals. Under the total-waste matrix, aggregate SDM outcome dependence is small (ρ = 0.084, p = 0.368), while the spatial lag of renewable-energy share is negative (−0.0673, p < 0.001). For MF3, BIC selects SAR (ρ = 0.352, p < 0.001), while an SDM is retained as an incremental-fit sensitivity. Aggregate SDiD is not treated as causal because only three donors are available and the placebo p-value is 0.33; the treated-count-weighted pre-period slope is −0.0034 (p = 0.308). Material-level CR2 estimates show a conditional post-adoption association concentrated in MF3 (−0.1007, p = 0.020). The findings support material-specific and network-aware monitoring and identify small-sample, network-selection, and policy-identification constraints.