IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/geo/guwopa/gueconwpa~00-00-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Reexamining the Empirical Evidence for an Environmental Kuznets Curve

Author

Abstract

This paper uses an updated and revised panel data set on ambient air pollution levels in cities world-wide to examine the robustness of the evidence for the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between national income and pollution. We test the sensitivity of the pollution-income relationship to functional forms, to additional covariates, and to changes in the nations, cities, and years sampled. We find that the results are highly sensitive to these changes, and conclude that there is little empirical support for an inverted-U-shaped relationship between several important air pollutants and national income in these data.

Suggested Citation

  • William Harbaugh & Arik Levinson & David Wilson, 2000. "Reexamining the Empirical Evidence for an Environmental Kuznets Curve," Working Papers gueconwpa~00-00-07, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:geo:guwopa:gueconwpa~00-00-07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www8.georgetown.edu/departments/economics/pdf/007.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: None
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beckerman, Wilfred, 1992. "Economic growth and the environment: Whose growth? whose environment?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 481-496, April.
    2. Selden Thomas M. & Song Daqing, 1994. "Environmental Quality and Development: Is There a Kuznets Curve for Air Pollution Emissions?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 147-162, September.
    3. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Selden, Thomas M., 1995. "Stoking the fires? CO2 emissions and economic growth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 85-101, May.
    4. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1995. "Economic Growth and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 353-377.
    5. Jones, L.E., 1995. "A Positive Model of Growth and Pollution Controls," Working papers 9513, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    6. Hilton, F. G. Hank & Levinson, Arik, 1998. "Factoring the Environmental Kuznets Curve: Evidence from Automotive Lead Emissions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 126-141, March.
    7. Selden Thomas M. & Song Daqing, 1995. "Neoclassical Growth, the J Curve for Abatement, and the Inverted U Curve for Pollution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 162-168, September.
    8. Andreoni, James & Levinson, Arik, 2001. "The simple analytics of the environmental Kuznets curve," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 269-286, May.
    9. Stokey, Nancy L, 1998. "Are There Limits to Growth?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(1), pages 1-31, February.
    10. Shafik, Nemat, 1994. "Economic Development and Environmental Quality: An Econometric Analysis," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(0), pages 757-773, Supplemen.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2004. "Trade, Growth, and the Environment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(1), pages 7-71, March.
    2. Dinda, Soumyananda, 2004. "Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis: A Survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 431-455, August.
    3. Stern, David I., 2004. "The Rise and Fall of the Environmental Kuznets Curve," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1419-1439, August.
    4. Andreoni, James & Levinson, Arik, 2001. "The simple analytics of the environmental Kuznets curve," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 269-286, May.
    5. Richard T. Carson, 2010. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve: Seeking Empirical Regularity and Theoretical Structure," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 4(1), pages 3-23, Winter.
    6. Junyi Shen & Yoshizo Hashimoto, 2004. "Environmental Kuznets Curve on Country Level: Evidence from China," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 04-09, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    7. Alexander Pfaff & Shubham Chaudhuri & Howard Nye, 2004. "Household Production and Environmental Kuznets Curves – Examining the Desirability and Feasibility of Substitution," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 27(2), pages 187-200, February.
    8. Matthew A. Cole & Andrea Lucchesi, 2014. "Economic growth and the environment," Chapters, in: Giles Atkinson & Simon Dietz & Eric Neumayer & Matthew Agarwala (ed.), Handbook of Sustainable Development, chapter 16, pages 252-266, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Carson, Richard T, 2009. "Searching for Empirical Regularity and Theoretical Structure: The Environmental Kuznets Curve," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt4m6263c2, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    10. Kelly, David L., 2003. "On environmental Kuznets curves arising from stock externalities," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(8), pages 1367-1390, June.
    11. Wang, Sophie Xuefei & Fu, Yu Benjamin & Zhang, Zhe George, 2015. "Population growth and the environmental Kuznets curve," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 146-165.
    12. Valeria Costantini & Chiara Martini, 2010. "A Modified Environmental Kuznets Curve for sustainable development assessment using panel data," International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(1/2), pages 84-122.
    13. Stern, David I., 2014. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve: A Primer," Working Papers 249424, Australian National University, Centre for Climate Economics & Policy.
    14. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Andrew K. Rose, 2005. "Is Trade Good or Bad for the Environment? Sorting Out the Causality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 85-91, February.
    15. Theodore Panayotou, 2000. "Economic Growth and the Environment," CID Working Papers 56A, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    16. J., AZNAR-MARQUEZ & Jose-Ramon, RUIZ-TAMARIT, 2005. "Demographic Transition Environmental Concern and the Kuznets Curve," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2005001, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    17. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 2003. "The Environment and Globalization," NBER Working Papers 10090, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. J. Aznar-Márquez & J. R. Ruiz-Tamarit, "undated". "Non-Catastrophic Endogenous Growth and the Environmental Kuznets Curve," Working Papers 2004-15, FEDEA.
    19. Ranganathan, Shyam & Bali Swain, Ranjula, 2014. "Analysing Mechanisms for Meeting Global Emissions Target - A Dynamical Systems Approach," Working Paper Series 2014:10, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    20. Hatem M'henni & Mohamed El Hedi Arouri & Adel Ben Youssef & Christophe Rault, 2011. "Income Level and Environmental Quality in The MENA Countries: Discussing the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis," Working Papers 587, Economic Research Forum, revised 05 Jan 2011.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q2 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation

    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:geo:guwopa:gueconwpa~00-00-07. 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: Marcia Suss (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://econ.georgetown.edu/ .

    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.