scholarly journals Environmental Kuznets Curve Revisit: Role of Economic Diversity in Environmental Degradation

Author(s):  
Raza Ghazal ◽  
Mohammad Sharif Karimi ◽  
Bakhtiar Javaheri

Abstract Background: Unlike the classical view, a new path of economic growth and development among the emerging and developing nations seems to have distinct impact on environment. Customary patterns of production and consumption have undergone significant changes and the new “growth with non-smoke-staks” has put the developing economies on a path that can change Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) fundamentally. With this view, the current study attempts to examine how these growth patterns among developing world have impacted the degradation of environment. We argue that including income per capita and share of manufacturing would not capture the full growth dynamic of developing and emerging countries and therefore it masks the real impacts on environmental degradation. To this end, we introduce the Economic Complexity Index (ECI) to the model to reflect the full impacts of new growth approaches on CO2 emission levels by using a panel data analyses of 100 emerging and developing countries over 1963-2018 period.Results: The results indicate that complexity of the economies of developing and emerging countries has added to the CO2 emission levels in absolute terms but it has helped to reduce the CO2 intensity. Conclusions: The implications of the findings for developing and developed countries could be quite significant. For advanced economies, a downwardly-shifted Kuznets curve implies that, on one hand, technology transfers have been successful in curbing the environmental degradation of developing economies and, on the other hand, the economic transformation strategies of developing world is working in a sustainable way.

2012 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 609-623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Asghari

Recent empirical research has examined the relationship between certain indicators of environmental degradation and income, concluding that in some cases an inverted U-shaped relationship, which has been called an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), exists between these variables. The source of growth explanation is important for two reasons. First, it demonstrates how the pollution consequences of growth depend on the source of growth. Therefore, the analogy drawn by some in the environmental community between the damaging effects of economic development and those of liberalized trade is, at best, incomplete. Second, the source of growth explanation demonstrates that a strong policy response to income gains is not necessary for pollution to fall with growth. The aim of this paper investigates the role of differences source of growth in environmental quality of Iran. The results show the two growth resources in Iran cause, in the early stages, CO2 emission decreases until turning point but beyond this level of income per capita, economic growth leads to environmental degradation. I find a U relationship between environmental degradation (CO2 emission) and economic growth in Iran.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-60
Author(s):  
T. S. Krishnan

Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis provides support for public policies that emphasize economic growth at the expense of environmental degradation. This hypothesis postulates an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation with plausible explanations. We contribute to the discussion on EKC hypothesis by focusing on anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emission (a greenhouse gas) during an extreme year. In the year 2005, concentration of anthropogenic CO2 became higher than the natural range observed over the last 650,000 years. Using econometric modeling of data from 122 countries for the year 2005, we study the key question: Does EKC hypothesis hold for anthropogenic CO2 emission after controlling for energy consumption and environmental governance? We do not find statistical support for EKC hypothesis. But, we find that improvements in environmental governance reduces CO2 emission. This suggests support for environmental policies that specifically promote CO2 emission reduction and does not emphasize economic growth at the expense of environmental degradation.INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTVolume-5, Issue-2, March-May 2016, Page: 48-60


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 12507
Author(s):  
Farrah Dina Abd Razak ◽  
Norlin Khalid ◽  
Mohd Helmi Ali

This paper aims to discover the asymmetry impacts and co-integration between gross domestic product, financial development, energy use and environmental degradation by featuring institutional quality covering the Malaysia economy during the period from 1984 until 2017 using a nonlinear auto-regressive distributed lag model. The results confirm the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis for both linear and nonlinear analyses, thus verifying the relevance of symmetric and asymmetric EKC hypotheses for Malaysia. Further, this study verifies the attributes of financial development and institutional quality that mitigates the concern on CO2 emissions, but contradicting results were produced on energy use. The implication of this finding provides new guidelines for Malaysia authorities to consider the asymmetries in formulating environment-related policies to maintain environmental quality and achieve their sustainable development goals.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 444-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caner Demir ◽  
Raif Cergibozan ◽  
Adem Gök

The aim of the study is to investigate the impact of income inequality on environmental quality in Turkey within the Environmental Kuznets Curve framework. In order to observe the short-run and long-run effects of income inequality on environmental quality, an autoregressive distributed lag bounds test on CO2 emission has been employed for the period 1963–2011 of Turkey. The results of the analysis reveal that there is a negative association between CO2 emission level and income inequality, which implies that increasing income inequality reduces environmental degradation in Turkey. Hence, a greater inequality in the society leads to less aggregate consumption in the economy due to lower propensity to emit in the richer households resulting in better environmental quality. The findings confirm an argument in the existing literature, which suggests that for developing countries, until a certain level of development, environmental degradation increases as income inequality in the society decreases. The results also confirm the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Folorunso Sunday Ayadi

The possibility of the existence of environmental Kuznet curve (EKC) has been debated extensively in the literature. The reality of EKC is that, by pursuing growth in income, environmental objectives can be simultaneously accomplished without initiating extra intervention tools. Various studies have been conducted on the existence of EKC without any consensus. Therefore, in this paper, the author analyzes whether or not EKC exists and its shape. In this study, the author uses an explanatory variable to in the model, which is population density, showing the level of resilience of the environment to pollution. However, this research found that at the lower stage of income, environmental degradation declined with income growth, rises as income grew further, then declined. However, income did not contribute significantly toward the explanation of environmental degradation like population density. This research found no synergies between addressing poverty and environmental problems in Nigeria. Therefore, complementary environmental policies must be put in place when addressing poverty. Lastly, there are different shapes of the relationship between income growth and various measures of pollution and environmental degradation, and developing countries must recognize that no one size fits all in this relationship.


1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 357-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDWARD B. BARBIER

This special issue is concerned with environmental Kuznets curves (EKC) - the hypothesis that there is an ‘inverted-U’ relationship between various indicators of environmental degradation and levels of per capita income. Explanations as to why environmental degradation should first increase then decline with income have focused on a number of underlying relationships, including:the effects of structural economic change on the use of the environment for resource inputs and to assimilate waste;the link between the demand for environmental quality and income;types of environmental degradation and ecological processes.


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