All European Union (EU) member states have to comply with the demanding recycling rates targets that were set for the recovery of packaging waste in the Directive 94/62/EC. Nevertheless, each country has its own system for accomplishing these targets. Some already had national legislation when...

The recycling of packaging waste is an objective of the Community with very ambitious recycling rate targets laid down in the European law. Research on the operations and on the financial and economic costs that resulted from this environmental policy is an ongoing effort. Currently, there is...

This research analyses the performance of Portuguese metros in the European context. By means of two non-parametric benchmarking techniques, respectively performance indicators and data envelopment analysis, we compute the efficiency of 37 European metros. In order to provide statistical...

The Portuguese government recently launched a new program to refurbish the secondary schools all over the country. Along with this process more responsibilities are being transferred to local governments concerning pre and elementary schools. This is seen as the main motivation for the...

The health care services have been characterised by a growing demand by the citizens leading to the need of more and more resources. Population aging, new pathologies and drugs as well as new treatments are some of the major factors for this. However, in hospitals, for example, consumption of a...

Various state-based and national reports into Australian local government have conclusively demonstrated that the problem of financial sustainability is widespread amongst local councils, especially in non-metropolitan areas. The main impact of this financial distress has fallen on local...

A series of national and state public inquiries have established that the great majority of Australian local councils find themselves in straitened financial circumstances, with the problem of financial distress most acute in small regional, rural and remote local authorities. Given the spatial...