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.