E. Dijkgraaf and R. H. J. M. Gradus 1. 1 Introduction In 2004 Elbert Dijkgraaf nished a PhD-thesis Regulating the Dutch waste market at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. It was interesting that not much is published about the waste market, although it is a very important sector from an economic and environmental viewpoint. In 2006 we were participants at a very interesting conf- ence on Local Government Reform: privatization and public-private collaboration in Barcelona organized by Germa Bel. It was interesting to notice that researchers from Spain, Scandinavian countries, the UK and the USA...