IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/feemwp/310225.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Role of Education and Income Inequality on Environmental Quality. A Panel Data Analysis of the EKC Hypothesis on OECD

Author

Listed:
  • Maranzano, Paolo
  • Cerdeira Bento, Joao Paulo
  • Manera, Matteo

Abstract

We study the impact of human capital and the level of education on the pollution-income relationship controlling for income inequality in 17 OECD countries. By applying an innovative approach to country grouping, based on the temporal evolution of income inequality and clustering techniques to feature the annual value of the Gini Index on disposable income from 1987 to 2015, we have estimated panel data models by distinguishing between low and high levels of income inequality country clusters. Robustness checks and endogeneity tests are further performed considering as the discriminant factor the income inequality aecting the countries in the sample. The findings highlight the role of the educational level and years of schooling in validating the EKC hypothesis. We recommend that this variable should not be neglected in future EKC studies. Therefore, any EKC theory should also acknowledge a new EKC model specification that we named the Educational EKC.

Suggested Citation

  • Maranzano, Paolo & Cerdeira Bento, Joao Paulo & Manera, Matteo, 2021. "The Role of Education and Income Inequality on Environmental Quality. A Panel Data Analysis of the EKC Hypothesis on OECD," FEEM Working Papers 310225, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:feemwp:310225
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.310225
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/310225/files/NDL2021-008.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.310225?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luzzati, T. & Gucciardi, G., 2015. "A non-simplistic approach to composite indicators and rankings: an illustration by comparing the sustainability of the EU Countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 25-38.
    2. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, 2015. "The Next Generation of the Penn World Table," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3150-3182, October.
    3. Daron Acemoglu & David Autor, 2012. "What Does Human Capital Do? A Review of Goldin and Katz's The Race between Education and Technology," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(2), pages 426-463, June.
    4. Stern, David I., 2004. "The Rise and Fall of the Environmental Kuznets Curve," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1419-1439, August.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Francisco A. Gallego & James A. Robinson, 2014. "Institutions, Human Capital, and Development ," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 875-912, August.
    6. Hiroki Iwata & Keisuke Okada & Sovannroeun Samreth, 2012. "Empirical study on the determinants of CO 2 emissions: evidence from OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(27), pages 3513-3519, September.
    7. Kaushik Basu & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2016. "Inequality and Growth," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 24984.
    8. Al-Mulali, Usama & Ozturk, Ilhan, 2016. "The investigation of environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in the advanced economies: The role of energy prices," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1622-1631.
    9. Leal, Patrícia Hipólito & Marques, António Cardoso, 2020. "Rediscovering the EKC hypothesis for the 20 highest CO2 emitters among OECD countries by level of globalization," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 36-47.
    10. Rasli, Amran Md. & Qureshi, Muhammad Imran & Isah-Chikaji, Aliyu & Zaman, Khalid & Ahmad, Mehboob, 2018. "New toxics, race to the bottom and revised environmental Kuznets curve: The case of local and global pollutants," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P2), pages 3120-3130.
    11. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119.
    12. Grossman, G.M & Krueger, A.B., 1991. "Environmental Impacts of a North American Free Trade Agreement," Papers 158, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Public and International Affairs.
    13. Joakim Westerlund, 2007. "Testing for Error Correction in Panel Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 69(6), pages 709-748, December.
    14. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    15. Hausman, Jerry A. & Taylor, William E., 1981. "A generalized specification test," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 239-245.
    16. Vona, Francesco & Patriarca, Fabrizio, 2011. "Income inequality and the development of environmental technologies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 2201-2213, September.
    17. Karen Ehrhardt‐Martinez & Edward M. Crenshaw & J. Craig Jenkins, 2002. "Deforestation and the Environmental Kuznets Curve: A Cross‐National Investigation of Intervening Mechanisms," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 83(1), pages 226-243, March.
    18. Peter Pedroni, 1999. "Critical Values for Cointegration Tests in Heterogeneous Panels with Multiple Regressors," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 653-670, November.
    19. Heerink, Nico & Mulatu, Abay & Bulte, Erwin, 2001. "Income inequality and the environment: aggregation bias in environmental Kuznets curves," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 359-367, September.
    20. Joakim Westerlund, 2005. "New Simple Tests for Panel Cointegration," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 297-316.
    21. Saboori, Behnaz & Sulaiman, Jamalludin, 2013. "Environmental degradation, economic growth and energy consumption: Evidence of the environmental Kuznets curve in Malaysia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 892-905.
    22. Dinda, Soumyananda, 2004. "Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis: A Survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 431-455, August.
    23. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July.
    24. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    25. Churchill, Sefa Awaworyi & Inekwe, John & Ivanovski, Kris & Smyth, Russell, 2018. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve in the OECD: 1870–2014," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 389-399.
    26. Peter Pedroni, 2001. "Purchasing Power Parity Tests In Cointegrated Panels," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(4), pages 727-731, November.
    27. David I. Stern, 2017. "The environmental Kuznets curve after 25 years," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 7-28, April.
    28. Balaguer, Jacint & Cantavella, Manuel, 2018. "The role of education in the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Evidence from Australian data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 289-296.
    29. Robert J. Barro, 2001. "Human Capital and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 12-17, May.
    30. repec:bla:obuest:v:61:y:1999:i:0:p:653-70 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Sapkota, Pratikshya & Bastola, Umesh, 2017. "Foreign direct investment, income, and environmental pollution in developing countries: Panel data analysis of Latin America," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 206-212.
    32. Levin, Andrew & Lin, Chien-Fu & James Chu, Chia-Shang, 2002. "Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-24, May.
    33. Magnani, Elisabetta, 2000. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve, environmental protection policy and income distribution," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 431-443, March.
    34. Amparo Castello & Rafael Domenech, 2002. "Human Capital Inequality and Economic Growth: Some New Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages 187-200, March.
    35. Frederick Solt, 2016. "The Standardized World Income Inequality Database," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1267-1281, November.
    36. Acaravci, Ali & Ozturk, Ilhan, 2010. "On the relationship between energy consumption, CO2 emissions and economic growth in Europe," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 5412-5420.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cengiz Aytun & Cemil Serhat Akin, 2022. "Can education lower the environmental degradation? Bootstrap panel Granger causality analysis for emerging countries," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(9), pages 10666-10694, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lau, Lin-Sea & Choong, Chee-Keong & Ng, Cheong-Fatt & Liew, Feng-Mei & Ching, Suet-Ling, 2019. "Is nuclear energy clean? Revisit of Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis in OECD countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 12-20.
    2. Nabila Asghar & Awais Anwar & Hafeez Ur Rehman & Saba Javed, 2020. "Industrial practices and quality of environment: evidence for Asian economies," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(8), pages 7807-7829, December.
    3. Muhammad Shafiullah & Vassilios G. Papavassiliou & Muhammad Shahbaz, 2021. "Is There an Extended Education-Based Environmental Kuznets Curve? An Analysis of U.S. States," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 80(4), pages 795-819, December.
    4. Muhammad Shahbaz & Avik Sinha, 2019. "Environmental Kuznets curve for CO2emissions: a literature survey," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 46(1), pages 106-168, January.
    5. Atwi, Majed & Barberán, Ramón & Mur, Jesús & Angulo, Ana, 2018. "CO2 Kuznets Curve Revisited: From Cross-Sections to Panel Data Models," INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH, Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional, issue 40, pages 169-196.
    6. Balsalobre-Lorente, Daniel & Driha, Oana M. & Shahbaz, Muhammad & Sinha, Avik, 2020. "The effects of tourism and globalization over environmental degradation in developed countries," MPRA Paper 100092, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Muhammad Bilal Khan & Hummera Saleem & Malik Shahzad Shabbir & Xie Huobao, 2022. "The effects of globalization, energy consumption and economic growth on carbon dioxide emissions in South Asian countries," Energy & Environment, , vol. 33(1), pages 107-134, February.
    8. Albulescu, Claudiu Tiberiu & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Yoon, Seong-Min & Kang, Sang Hoon, 2019. "FDI, income, and environmental pollution in Latin America: Replication and extension using panel quantiles regression analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    9. Anh Hoang To & Duc Hong Vo, 2020. "The Balanced Energy Mix for Achieving Environmental and Economic Goals in the Long Run," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-21, July.
    10. Jiang Qingquan & Shoukat Iqbal Khattak & Manzoor Ahmad & Lin Ping, 2020. "A new approach to environmental sustainability: Assessing the impact of monetary policy on CO2 emissions in Asian economies," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(5), pages 1331-1346, September.
    11. Ozcan, Burcu, 2013. "The nexus between carbon emissions, energy consumption and economic growth in Middle East countries: A panel data analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1138-1147.
    12. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Sinha, Avik, 2019. "Environmental Kuznets Curve for CO2 emission: A survey of empirical literature," MPRA Paper 100257, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2019.
    13. Wilman-Santiago Ochoa-Moreno & Byron Alejandro Quito & Carlos Andrés Moreno-Hurtado, 2021. "Foreign Direct Investment and Environmental Quality: Revisiting the EKC in Latin American Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-18, November.
    14. Hussein Moghaddam & Robert M. Kunst, 2023. "The Role of Natural Gas in Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis for Major Gas-Producing Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-20, February.
    15. Kentaka Aruga, 2019. "Investigating the Energy-Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis for the Asia-Pacific Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-12, April.
    16. Doğan, Buhari & Ghosh, Sudeshna & Hoang, Dung Phuong & Chu, Lan Khanh, 2022. "Are economic complexity and eco-innovation mutually exclusive to control energy demand and environmental quality in E7 and G7 countries?," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    17. Caravaggio, Nicola, 2020. "A global empirical re-assessment of the Environmental Kuznets curve for deforestation," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    18. Wilman‐Santiago Ochoa‐Moreno & Byron Quito & Daniel E. Enríquez & José Álvarez‐García, 2022. "Evaluation of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in a tourism development context: evidence for 15 Latin American countries," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5), pages 2143-2155, July.
    19. Abebe Hailemariam & Ratbek Dzhumashev & Muhammad Shahbaz, 2020. "Carbon emissions, income inequality and economic development," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 1139-1159, September.
    20. Lars Sorge & Anne Neumann, 2017. "The Nexus of CO2 Emissions, Energy Consumption, Economic Growth, and Trade-Openness in WTO Countries," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1699, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental Economics and Policy;

    JEL classification:

    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O44 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Environment and Growth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:feemwp:310225. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.