scholarly journals The evolution of the environmental Kuznets curve concept: The review of the research

2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romualdas Ginevicius ◽  
Giedrė Lapinskienė ◽  
Kęstutis Peleckis

The paper aims to describe the evolution of the environmental Kuznets curve, from its origin up to its present status, and to systemise the results of the empirical studies of the relationship between the emissions of greenhouse gases and economic growth. The environmental Kuznets curve indicates that at the early stages of economic growth, pollution increases with the growing use of resources, but when a certain level of income per capita is reached, the trend reverses so that, at a higher development stage, further economic growth leads to the improvement of the environment. The paper starts with a description of the most influential theories of the environmental economics that helps to highlight an effective environmental approach. The article may be useful for scientists and policy makers, analysing the trends of the economic development of various countries and the problems of the relationship between the environmental indicators and economic growth.

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 09021
Author(s):  
Citrasmara Galuh Nuansa ◽  
Wahyu Widodo

Sustainable development with three main pillars, namely environmental, economic, and social, is the concept of country’s development to achieve inclusive economic growth, good environmental quality, and improvement of people's welfare. However, the dominance of economic factors cause various environmental problem. This phenomenon occurs in most of developing countries, including in Indonesia. The relationship between economic activity and environmental quality has been widely discussed and empirically tested by scholars. This descriptive research analysed the hypothesis called Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) from a perspective of sustainable development in Indonesia. EKC hypothesis illustrates the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation forming an inverted U-curve, indicating that at the beginning of development, environmental quality will decrease along with increasing economic growth, and then reached a certain point the environmental quality will gradually improve. In this paper will be discussed how the relationship between environmental quality and economic growth in Indonesia was investigated. The preliminary results show that most of the empirical studies use the conventional approach, in which the CO2 emission used as the proxy of environmental degradation. The existence of inverted U-curve is also inconclusive. Therefore, the extension research on the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality in Indonesia using the EKC hypothesis is required.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sakshi Gambhir

The relationship between economic growth and environmental quality has been under much dispute. Over the years, several studies have identified inverted-U shaped relationships between per capita income and some measure of environmental degradation. This has led to the emergence of a burgeoning literature on what has come to be known about as the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). According to the EKC hypothesis, environmental damage increases in the early stages of economic growth, but diminishes once nations reach higher levels of income. This literature is important as it acknowledges the possibility of trade and growth being good for the environment. Against this backdrop, we have attempted to give an overview of some of the studies published on EKC and subsequently critically appraised the same. The EKC has been criticised for its simplified assumptions and the literature appears to be largely econometrically weak. It has been shown to apply to select environmental indicators for certain countries; hence its validity as a universal phenomenon remains questionable. Owing to global implications of environmental degradation, more efforts are required to examine the validity of EKC as a global phenomenon by relating a composite index of environmental degradation to a better measure of economic development across nations.


Author(s):  
Giedrė Lapinskienė ◽  
Manuela Tvaronavičienė ◽  
Pranas Vaitkus

Abstract The paper analyses a traditional Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) relationship between greenhouse gases (GHG) and gross domestic product (GDP), extending the research to include some additional factors, such as environmental tax, research and development expenditure, implicit tax rate on energy, primary production of coal and lignite, energy intensity of the economy taken from the Eurostat database. The EKC indicates that, at the early stages of economic growth, pollution increases with the growing use of resources, but when a certain level of income per capita is reached, the trend reverses so that, at a higher development stage, further economic growth leads to the improvement of the environment. In the first part of the research, the validity of the reduced EKC for the Baltic region for the period 1995-2008 is determined. In the second part, the impact of selected factors is statistically tested. In both cases, the standard cubic equation is used because it is believed that this model is the most accurate for the development stage of this region. The research results may be useful for climate change policy design.


Author(s):  
Remigijus Ciegis ◽  
Dalia Streimikiene ◽  
Rimantas Pareigis ◽  
Dalia Gineitiene

The results of empirical studies on Kuznets environmental curves are discussed in the article as well as economic implications of findings of these studies. The relationship of economic growth and environmental impact has spurred fierce debates between growth optimists referring to the phenomenon of the environmental Kuznets curve, and pessimists referring to the limits to growth. The article draws some hints from a critical assessment of the literature on the environmental Kuznets curve. In particular it is argued that the optimistic implications of this literature on the sustainability management are not granted. However, environmental Kuznets curves analysis allows clarification of a few basic conditions to achieve pollution reduction with economic growth. These conditions can be met by implementing a systematic and strict environmental policy strategy aimed at shifting Kuznets relations downward.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 2411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Hao ◽  
Zirui Huang ◽  
Haitao Wu

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.


2011 ◽  
Vol 361-363 ◽  
pp. 1697-1702
Author(s):  
Lan Xu

The paper develops a two-state-variable environmental growth model to derive the optimal growth path for the relationship between pollution and economic growth, which is used to verify the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. It is found that the theoretical outcomes imply the existence of the EKC relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth, which is dependent on the combining effects of the pollution intensity, abatement technology of pollution emission, production technology, and the return rate of capital stock.


2013 ◽  
Vol 807-809 ◽  
pp. 732-735
Author(s):  
Shu Qing Zhou

Basing on the theories of Environmental Kuznets Curve,this paper analyzes the relationship between industrial economic growth and waste gas,waste water and solid wastes with the economic and environmental statistics of Chongqing Municipality from 1995 to 2009. The study shows that there is a inverted N-type of environmental Kuznets curve of the industrial waste water with the rising of industrial per capita value, but it lies in the left side of the EKC. There exists a extremely notable relationship between the industrial per capita value and produced volume of industrial solid wastes,but the curve has not come up to the turning point. In order to achieve the harmonious development between industrial economic growth and environmental pollution in Chongqing,we should establish the long-effect mechanism for environmental protection.


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