Share:


Exploring environmental Kuznets curve. An investigation on EU economies

    Daniel Badulescu   Affiliation
    ; Alina Badulescu   Affiliation
    ; Ramona Simut   Affiliation
    ; Dorin Bac   Affiliation
    ; Elena-Ana Iancu Affiliation
    ; Nicolaie Iancu Affiliation

Abstract

Designing and implementing relevant and effective environmental policies and fostering green and environmental-friendly approaches and behaviors are constant aims for policy makers all over the world. Concurrently, implementing environmental policies involves significant economic and financial efforts, in order to repair environmental damage and to prevent future negative environmental consequences. How effective are the environmental expenditures and how are they related to the economic growth, i.e. the GDP level, are issues of major concern at a governmental level. In this article we are examining the relation between GDP and environmental expenditure, by using statistical data available for EU economies, for the time period 1995-2013. We found that the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis is supported in most of the EU economies, both for government environmental protection and specialized providers, public and private environmental protection. Further and deeper analyses performed showed different situations for specific countries and even a negative relation between GDP and government environmental protection for specific cases.


First published online 18 November 2019

Keyword : environmental expenditure, Kuznets curve, GDP growth, EU member states

How to Cite
Badulescu, D., Badulescu, A., Simut, R., Bac, D., Iancu, E.-A., & Iancu, N. (2020). Exploring environmental Kuznets curve. An investigation on EU economies. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 26(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.3846/tede.2019.11261
Published in Issue
Jan 2, 2020
Abstract Views
1999
PDF Downloads
1016
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

References

Acaravci, A., & Akalin, G. (2017). Environment–economic growth nexus: a comparative analysis of developed and developing countries. International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, 7(5), 34-43.

Acaravci, A., & Ozturk, I. (2010). On the relationship between energy consumption, CO2 emissions and economic growth in Europe. Energy, 35(12), 5412-5420. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2010.07.009

Al-Mulali, U., Ozturk, I., & Lean, H. H. (2015). The influence of economic growth, urbanization, trade openness, financial development, and renewable energy on pollution in Europe. Natural Hazards, 79(1), 621-644. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-015-1865-9

Al-Mulali, U., Ozturk, I., & Solarin, S. A. (2016). Investigating the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in seven regions: The role of renewable energy. Ecological Indicators, 67, 267-282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.02.059

Alpay, E., Buccola, S., & Kerkvliet, J. (2002). Productivity growth and environmental regulation in Mexican and US food manufacturing. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 84(4), 887-901. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8276.00041

Anastacio, J. A. R. (2017). Economic growth, CO2 emissions and electric consumption: Is there an environmental Kuznets curve? An empirical study for North America countries. International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, 7(2), 65-71.

Andreoni, J., & Levinson, A. (2001). The simple analytics of the environmental Kuznets curve. Journal of Public Economics, 80(2), 269-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0047-2727(00)00110-9

Atici, C. (2009). Carbon emissions in central and eastern Europe: environmental Kuznets curve and implications for sustainable development. Sustainable Development, 17(3), 155-160. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.372

Bac, D. P. (2008). A history of the concept of sustainable development: Literature review. The Annals of the University of Oradea. Economic Sciences Series, 17(2), 576-580.

Badulescu, D., Bungau, C., & Badulescu, A. (2015). Sustainable development through sustainable businesses. An empirical research among master students. Journal of Environmental Protection and Ecology, 16(3), 1101-1108.

Badulescu, D., Badulescu, A., Sipos-Gug, S., & Rangone, A. (2016). Different or alike? Investigating the impact of GDP on environmental protection expenditure in selected European States. Global & Local Economic Review, 20(1), 55-75.

Becker, R. (2011). Local environmental regulation and plant-level productivity. Ecological Economics, 70, 2513-2522. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.08.019

Beckerman, W. (1992). Economic growth and the environment: whose growth? Whose environment? World Development, 20, 481-496. https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-750X(92)90038-W

Cole, M. (2003). Development, trade, and the environment: How robust is the environmental Kuznets curve? Environment and Development Economics, 8, 557-580. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355770X0300305

Cole, M. (2004). Trade, the pollution haven hypothesis and the environmental Kuznets curve: examining the linkages. Ecological Economics, 48(1), 71-81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2003.09.007

Cropper, M., & Griffiths, C. (1994). The interaction of population growth and environmental quality. American Economic Review, 84(2), 250-254.

De Santis, R., & Lasinio, C. (2015). Environmental policies, innovation and productivity in the EU (LEQS paper No. 100/2015). The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2696266

Dechezleprêtre, A., & Sato, M. (2014). The impacts of environmental regulations on competitiveness: policy brief. Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, The London School of Economics.

Dewan, E., & Hussein, S. (2001). Determinants of economic growth (panel data approach) (Working paper No. 01/04). Retrieved from http://www.rbf.gov.fj/docs/wp2001-04.pdf

Dijkgraaf, E., & Vollebergh, H. (2005). A test for parameter homogeneity in CO2 panel EKC estimations. Environmental and Resource Economics, 32(2), 229-239. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-005-2776-0

Dinda, S. (2005). A theoretical basis for the environmental Kuznets curve. Ecological Economics, 53(3), 403-413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2004.10.007

Dutt, K. (2009). Governance, institutions and the environment-income relationship: a cross-country study. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 11(4), 705-723. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-007-9138-8

Ekins, P. (1993). ‘Limits to growth’ and ‘sustainable development’: grappling with ecological realities. Ecological Economics, 8(3), 269-288. https://doi.org/10.1016/0921-8009(93)90062-B

Ekins, P. (1997). The Kuznets curve for the environment and economic growth: examining the evidence. Environment and Planning, 29(5), 805-830. https://doi.org/10.1068/a290805

European Commission. (2011). Environmental protection expenditure in Europe – Data 1995–2009. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.

Eurostat. (2008). NACE Rev. 2. Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Eurostat. (2017). Environmental protection expenditure accounts Handbook 2017 edition. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.

Everett, T., Ishwaran, M., Ansaloni, G. P., & Rubin, A. (2010). Economic growth and the environment. Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

Frankel, J. (2003, November). The environment and globalization (Working paper No. 10090). https://doi.org/10.3386/w10090

Galeotti, M., & Lanza, A. (1999). Richer and cleaner? A study on carbon dioxide emissions in developing countries. Energy Policy, 27(10), 565-573. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0301-4215(99)00047-6

Galeotti, M., Lanza, A., & Pauli, F. (2006). Reassessing the environmental Kuznets curve for CO2 emissions: A robustness exercise. Ecological Economics, 57(1), 152-163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.03.031

Gray, W. (1987). The cost of regulation: OSHA, EPA and the productivity slowdown. The American Economic Review, 77(5), 998-1006.

Greenstone, M., List, J., & Syverson, C. (2012). The effects of environmental regulation on the competitiveness of US manufacturing. (Working paper No. 18392). Cambridge, Massachusetts. https://doi.org/10.3386/w18392

Grossman, G., & Krueger, A. (1995). Economic growth and the environment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110(2), 353-377. https://doi.org/10.2307/2118443

Grossman, G., & Krueger, A. (1991). Environmental impacts of a North American free trade agreement (Working paper No. 3914). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w3914

Hausman, J. (1978). Specification tests in econometrics. Econometrica, 46, 1251-1271. https://doi.org/10.2307/1913827

Hettige, H., Lucas, R., & Wheeler, D. (1992). The toxic intensity of industrial production: global patterns, trends and trade policy. American Economic Review, 82, 478-481.

Jebli, M. B., Youssef, S. B., & Ozturk, I. (2016). Testing environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis: The role of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption and trade in OECD countries. Ecological Indicators, 60, 824-831. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.08.031

John, A., & Pecchenino, R. (1994). An overlapping generations model of growth and the environment. The Economic Journal, 104(427), 1393-1410. https://doi.org/10.2307/2235455

Kearsley, A., & Riddel, M. (2010). A further inquiry into the Pollution Haven Hypothesis and the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Ecological Economics, 69(4), 905-919. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.11.014

Keho, Y. (2017). Revisiting the income, energy consumption and carbon emissions nexus: New evidence from quantile regression for different country groups. International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, 7(3), 356-363.

Koźluk, T., & Zipperer, V. (2015). Environmental policies and productivity growth – a critical review of empirical findings. OECD Journal: Economic Studies, 2014, 155-185. https://doi.org/10.1787/eco_studies-2014-5jz2drqml75j

Kuznets, S. (1955). Economic growth and income inequality. American Economic Review, XLV(1), 1-28.

Lapinskienė, G., Tvaronavičienė, M., & Vaitkus, P. (2014). Greenhouse gases emissions and economic growth – evidence substantiating the presence of environmental Kuznets curve in the EU. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 20(1), 65-78. https://doi.org/10.3846/20294913.2014.881434

Lecomber, R. (1975). Economic growth versus the environment. London: Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02074-4

Levinson, A., & Taylor, M. (2004). Unmasking the pollution haven effect (Working paper No. 10629). https://doi.org/10.3386/w10629

Lieb, C. (2002). The Environmental Kuznets Curve and satiation: a simple static model. Environment and Development Economics, 7(3), 429-448. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355770X02000268

Lopez, R. (1994). The environment as a factor of production: the effects of economic growth and trade liberalization. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 27(2), 163-184. https://doi.org/10.1006/jeem.1994.1032

Magnani, E. (2000). The Environmental Kuznets Curve, environmental protection policy and income distribution. Ecological Economics, 32(2), 431-443. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(99)00115-9

Managi, S., Opaluch, J., Jin, D., & Grigalunas, T. (2005). Environmental regulations and technological change in the offshore oil and gas industry. Land Economics, 81(2), 303-319. https://doi.org/10.3368/le.81.2.303

Marques, L. M., Fuinhas, J. A., & Marques, A. C. (2017). On the dynamics of energy-growth nexus: evidence from a world divided into four regions. International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, 7(3), 208-215.

Meadows, D., Meadows, D., Randers, J., & Behrens, W. (1972). The limits to growth: a report for the club of Rome’s project on the predicament of mankind. New York: Universe Books. https://doi.org/10.1349/ddlp.1

Mensah, J. T. (2014). Carbon emissions, energy consumption and output: A threshold analysis on the causal dynamics in emerging African economies. Energy Policy, 70(14), 172-182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2014.03.038

Mishenin, Y., Koblianska, I., Medvid, V., & Maistrenko, Y. (2018). Sustainable regional development policy formation: role of industrial ecology and logistics. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 6(1), 329-341. https://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2018.6.1(20)

Panayotou, T. (2000). Economic growth and the environment (CID Working Paper No. 56). Center for International Development at Harvard University.

Pearce, D., & Palmer, C. (2001). Public and private spending for environmental protection: a cross- country policy analysis. Fiscal Studies, 22(4), 403-456. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5890.2001.tb00048.x

Pesaran, M., & Shin, Y. (1999). An autoregressive distributed lag modelling approach to cointegration analysis (chapter 11). In S. Strom (Ed.), Econometrics and economic theory in 20th century: the Ragnar Frisch centennial symposium (pp. 371-413). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139052221.011

Pesaran, M., Shin, Y., & Smith, R. (2001). Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 16(3), 289-326. https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.616

Peters, G., Minx, J., Weber, C., & Edenhofer, O. (2011). Growth in emission transfers via international trade from 1990 to 2008. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 108(21), 8903-8908. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1006388108

Rafindadi, A. A., & Ozturk, I. (2017). Impacts of renewable energy consumption on the German economic growth: Evidence from combined cointegration test. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 75, 1130-1141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.11.093

Rauf, A., Liu, X., Amin, W., Ozturk, I., Rehman, O. U., & Hafeez, M. (2018). Testing EKC hypothesis with energy and sustainable development challenges: A fresh evidence from Belt and Road Initiative economies. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 25(32), 32066-32080. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-3052-5

Rogalev, A., Komarov, I., Kindra, V., & Zlyvko, O. (2018). Entrepreneurial assessment of sustainable development technologies for power energy sector. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 6(1), 429-445. https://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2018.6.1(26)

Selden, T., & Song, D. (1994). Environmental quality and development: is there a Kuznets curve for air pollution emissions? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 27, 147-162. https://doi.org/10.1006/jeem.1994.1031

Shahbaz, M., Dube, S., Ozturk, I., & Jalil, A. (2015). Testing the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in Portugal. International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, 5(2), 475-481.

Smith, J., & Sims, W. (1985). The impact of pollution charges on productivity growth in Canadian brewing. The RAND Journal of Economics, 16(3), 410-423. https://doi.org/10.2307/2555567

Stjepanović, S., Tomić, D., & Škare, M. (2017). A new approach to measuring green GDP: a crosscountry analysis. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 4(4), 574-590. https://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2017.4.4(13)

Stern, D., Common, M., & Barbier, E. (1996). Economic growth and environmental degradation: The environmental Kuznets curve and sustainable development. World Development, 24(7), 1151-1160. https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-750X(96)00032-0

Stern, D., (2004). The rise and fall of the environmental Kuznets curve. World Development, 32(8), 1419-1439. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2004.03.004

Suri, V., & Chapman, D. (1998). Economic growth, trade and energy: implications for the environmental Kuznets curve. Ecological Economics, 25(2), 195-208. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(97)00180-8

Tahvonen, O., & Kuuluvainen, J. (1993). Economic growth, pollution, and renewable resources. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 24(2), 101-118. https://doi.org/10.1006/jeem.1993.1007

Uchiyama, K. (2016). Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis. In K. Uchiyama (Ed.), Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis and Carbon Dioxide Emissions (pp. 11-29). Tokyo, Japan: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55921-4

Vegera, S., Malei, A., Sapeha, I., & Sushko, V. (2018a). Information support of the circular economy: the objects of accounting at recycling technological cycle stages of industrial waste. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 6(1), 190-210. https://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2018.6.1(13)

Vegera, S., Malei, A., & Trubovich, R. (2018b). Accounting development of natural resources in organizations carrying out the disposal of municipal waste and biogas extraction in the context of the “green” economy. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 6(1), 211-225. https://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2018.6.1(14)

World Trade Organization. (1999). Special studies 4. Trade and environment. Geneva: WTO Publications.

Wu, Y., & Wang, B. (2008). Environmental regulation and total factor productivity growth: an empirical study of the APEC economies. Economic Research Journal, 5, 19-33.

Yang, C., Tseng, Y., & Chen, C. (2012). Environmental regulations, induced R&D, and productivity: evidence from Taiwan’s manufacturing industries. Resource and Energy Economics, 34, 514-532. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2012.05.001

Yörük, B., & Zaim, O. (2005). Productivity growth in OECD countries: a comparison with Malmquist indices. Journal of Comparative Economics, 33(2), 401-420. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2005.03.011