scholarly journals The Impact of Income Inequality on Environmental Quality: A Sectoral-Level Analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sedat Alataş ◽  
Tuğba Akın
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Environmental Kuznets Curve ◽  
Kuznets Curve ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Cointegration Tests ◽  
Cross Sectional Dependence ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Level Analysis

Abstract There is a growing literature on the relationship between income inequality and emissions. However, these studies ignore the sectoral level differences in carbon emissions. We argue that the environmental effect of inequality might vary at the sectoral level. Our main purpose is to contribute to this growing literature on the inequality-emissions nexus by considering sectoral-level differences. For that purpose, we focus on five different sectors: power industry, buildings, transport, other industrial combustion, and other sectors. To specify our model, we augment the environmental Kuznets curve framework with income inequality by controlling the effect of globalization and urbanization. Our country sample consists of 28 OECD economies for the period between 1990 and 2018. Methodologically, we apply the second-generation panel unit root, cointegration tests, and estimators, which produce robust results against the cross-sectional dependence. Our findings reveal that not only income but also income inequality is a crucial factor in explaining changes in sectoral emissions. While rising income inequality increases carbon emissions from the power and building sectors, this finding turns out to be negative for the transport, other industrial combustion, and other sectors. Our results suggest that policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions should be designed at the sectoral level.

Income inequality and CO2 emissions: Empirical evidence from Turkey

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 444-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caner Demir ◽  
Raif Cergibozan ◽  
Adem Gök
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Environmental Kuznets Curve ◽  
Kuznets Curve ◽  
Aggregate Consumption ◽  
Distributed Lag ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Short Run ◽  
The Impact

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.

scholarly journals Do Carbon Emissions and Economic Growth Decouple in China? An Empirical Analysis Based on Provincial Panel Data

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 2411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Hao ◽  
Zirui Huang ◽  
Haitao Wu
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Panel Data ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Environmental Kuznets Curve ◽  
Kuznets Curve ◽  
Ekc Hypothesis ◽  
Capita Gross Domestic Product ◽  
Level Of Economic Development ◽  
The Relationship

Global warming has emerged as a serious threat to humans and sustainable development. China is under increasing pressure to curb its carbon emissions as the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide. By combining the Tapio decoupling model and the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) framework, this paper explores the relationship between China’s carbon emissions and economic growth. Based on panel data of 29 provinces from 2007 to 2016, this paper quantitatively estimates the nexus of carbon emissions and economic development for the whole nation and the decoupling status of individual provinces. There is empirical evidence for the conventional EKC hypothesis, showing that the relationship between carbon emissions and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is an inverted U shape and that the inflection point will not be attained soon. Moreover, following the estimation results of the Tapio decoupling model, there were significant differences between individual provinces in decoupling status. As a result, differentiated and targeted environmental regulations and policies regarding energy consumption and carbon emissions should be reasonably formulated for different provinces and regions based on the corresponding level of economic development and decoupling status.

scholarly journals ‘Don’t play if you can’t win’: does economic inequality undermine political equality?

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armin Schäfer ◽  
Hanna Schwander
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Local Data ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractIn this paper, we investigate whether income inequality negatively affects voter turnout. Despite some progress, the answer to this question is still debated due to methodological disagreements and differences in the selection of countries and time periods. We contribute to this debate by triangulating data and methods. More specifically, we use three kinds of data to resolve the question: first, we use cross-sectional aggregate data of 21 OECD countries in the time period from 1980 to 2014 to study the relationship between inequality and electoral participation. Second, we zoom in on the German case and examine local data from 402 administrative districts between 1998 and 2017. Focusing on within-country variation eliminates differences that are linked to features of the political system. Finally, we combine survey data with macro-data to investigate the impact of inequality on individual voting. This final step also allows us to test whether the effect of income inequality on voter turnout differs across income groups. Taken together, we offer the most comprehensive analysis of the impact of social inequality on political inequality to date. We corroborate accounts that argue that economic inequality exacerbates participatory inequality.

scholarly journals The Environmental Kuznets Curve: A Semiparametric Approach with Cross-Sectional Dependence

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 292
Author(s):  
Alexandra Soberon ◽  
Irene D’Hers
Keyword(s):  
Co2 Emissions ◽  
Environmental Kuznets Curve ◽  
Functional Form ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Kuznets Curve ◽  
Ekc Hypothesis ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Semiparametric Approach ◽  
Level Of Economic Development ◽  
Cross Sectional Dependence

This paper proposes a new approach to examine the relationship between CO2 emissions and economic developing. In particular, we propose to test the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for a panel of 24 OECD countries and 32 non-OECD countries by developing a more flexible estimation technique which enables to account for functional form misspecification, cross-sectional dependence, and heterogeneous relationships among variables, simultaneously. We propose a new nonparametric estimator that extends the well-known Common Correlated Effect (CCE) approach from a fully parametric framework to a semiparametric panel data model. Our results corroborates that the nature and validity of the income–pollution relationship based on the EKC hypothesis depends on the model assumptions about the functional form specification. For all the countries analyzed, the proposed semiparametric estimator leads to non-monotonically increasing or decreasing relationships for CO2 emissions, depending on the level of economic development of the country.

scholarly journals Further Evidence on Import Demand Function and Income Inequality

Economies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Ioanna Konstantakopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Demand Function ◽  
Import Demand ◽  
One Dimension ◽  
Var Model ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Stochastic Trends ◽  
Advanced Economies ◽  
Cross Sectional Dependence ◽  
The Impact

In advanced economies, rising inequality has become a significant economic issue. Our paper examines one dimension of the impact of inequality. This study employs panel estimators that tackle heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence to estimate the impact of income inequality on import demand. In addition, we use a Bayesian approach to the cointegrated VAR model as well as a model that allows for stochastic trends and cross-sectional dependence. Annual panel data for the period from 1995 to 2016 on OECD countries are used. The empirical results show that inequality has a positive and significant effect on import demand. The estimation also yields some other expected results, viz. that the income and price elasticity of import demand function are positive and negative, respectively.

scholarly journals Analyzing the Impact of Energy, Export Variety, and FDI on Environmental Degradation in the Context of Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis: A Case Study of India

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1076 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tijjani Adamu ◽  
Ihtisham Haq ◽  
Muhammad Shafiq
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Environmental Kuznets Curve ◽  
Kuznets Curve ◽  
Ekc Hypothesis ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Export Variety ◽  
Short Run ◽  
The Impact

The economic size of the Indian economy and its status as one of the major global emitters of carbon emissions makes the country a good place to study the determinants of environmental degradation in India. The study aims at analyzing the impact of energy, export variety, and foreign direct investment (FDI) on environmental degradation in India in the context of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. The long run relationship was found between variables of the study through a cointegration test, whereas long run estimates were obtained through cointegration and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS). Results of the study reveal that energy consumption, export variety, FDI, and income positively contributed to environmental degradation in India. Results also unveil that the EKC hypothesis does not exist in India. Causality analyses document unidirectional causality from income and FDI to environmental degradation, and bidirectional causality was witnessed between energy consumption and environmental degradation and between export variety and environmental degradation in the long run. The long run and the short run causality highlight that India has to forego the short run economic growth in order to improve its environmental quality and reduce global carbon emissions; however, it will not affect its long term economic development process.

scholarly journals Demand for Urban Forests and Economic Welfare: Evidence from the Southeastern U.S. Cities

2006 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pengyu Zhu ◽  
Yaoqi Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Population Density ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Environmental Kuznets Curve ◽  
Urban Forest ◽  
Urban Forests ◽  
Economic Welfare ◽  
Kuznets Curve ◽  
Forest Coverage ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This study examines the relationship between urban forests and household income and population density in the 149 cities with populations over 40,000 in nine southeastern states. Our empirical results show that urban forest percentage across the cities has characteristics of the environmental Kuznets curve. We find that household income around $39,000 is a threshold that changes the relationship between income and urban forest coverage from negative to positive, whereas the impact of population density on urban forests is just the opposite, from positive to negative when population density is around 180 persons per square kilometer.

scholarly journals Does income inequality matter for CO2 emissions in Russian regions?

Equilibrium ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 533-551
Author(s):  
Natalia Davidson ◽  
Oleg Mariev ◽  
Sophia Turkanova
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Co2 Emissions ◽  
Environmental Kuznets Curve ◽  
Value Added ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Kuznets Curve ◽  
Russian Regions ◽  
Fixed And Random Effects ◽  
The Impact

Research background: Intensive economic growth in Russian regions during recent decades has been associated with numerous environmental issues, particularly increasing CO2 emissions, as well as income inequality. To achieve sustainable development, it is necessary to resolve these issues. Purpose of the article: To shed light on the impact of income inequality on CO2 emissions based on Russian regional data covering the years 2004?2018. Methods: Gini index and decile dispersion ratio are used to measure income inequality. To study the impact of income inequality on CO2 emissions in the Russian regions, we estimate econometric models with fixed and random effects and apply GMM method. We test the hypothesis of the environmental Kuznets curve to determine the impact of economic growth on CO2 emissions. Findings & value added: The results show that CO2 emissions increase in tandem with growth in income inequality between 10% of people with the lowest income and 10% of people with the highest income. Simultaneously, CO2 emissions decrease with growth of Gini coefficient. The hypothesis of the Environmental Kuznets Curve was confirmed based on GMM method. Our findings underscore that the activities of the extraction and manufacturing sectors, as well as energy consumption, increase CO2 emissions. The chief significance of this paper is the finding that large income gap between extremely rich and extremely poor population cohorts increases CO2 emissions. This implies that economic policy aimed at reducing income inequality in Russian regions will also reduce CO2 emissions, especially if accompanied by increased use of environmentally friendly technologies. From the international perspective, our research can be extended to study other countries and regions.

scholarly journals The Impact of Climate Change on Income Inequality. Evidence from European Union Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-235
Author(s):  
Albu Ada-Cristina ◽  
Albu Lucian-Liviu
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
European Union ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
European Union Countries ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract We will investigate in this paper the relation between income inequality and climate change, taking into account that the increase of carbon emissions has among consequences the increase of inequalities. The most vulnerable to climate change are the poorest and less developed countries. Climate change represents an important challenge for EU policymakers and the transition to zerocarbon emissions will lead to greater social inclusion and convergence among EU countries. We use in this paper two-stage OLS in order to analyse the relationship between income inequality and carbon emissions in case of EU countries.. We apply our model to two groups of European Union countries, the old member states - EU15 and new member states - EU13. Our results confirm that there are important differences between the two groups regarding the relationship between climate change and income inequalities. Therefore, policies implemented at EU level are extremely important in order to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on growing inequality and poverty in EU countries. Governments must invest in new technologies, industries and innovation in order to address the complex challenge posed by mitigating climate change.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document