IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/81801.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Carbon emissions and economic growth in South Africa: A quantile regression approach

Author

Listed:
  • Mapapu, Babalwa
  • Phiri, Andrew

Abstract

Of recent carbon emissions have become an increasing concern for economies worldwide. In this study we investigate the relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth for the South African economy, one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide worldwide. We employ the quantile regression methodology which is applied to annual data covering a period of 1970 to 2014. Our empirical results indicate that very low levels of carbon emissions are most beneficial towards economic growth. Our results thus encourage policymakers to continue to embark on energy efficiency programmes which specifically target lower levels of carbon pollution.

Suggested Citation

  • Mapapu, Babalwa & Phiri, Andrew, 2017. "Carbon emissions and economic growth in South Africa: A quantile regression approach," MPRA Paper 81801, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:81801
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/81801/1/MPRA_paper_81801.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Menyah, Kojo & Wolde-Rufael, Yemane, 2010. "Energy consumption, pollutant emissions and economic growth in South Africa," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1374-1382, November.
    4. Marcel Kohler, 2013. "CO2 Emissions, Energy Consumption, Income and Foreign Trade: A South African Perspective," Working Papers 356, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    5. Rafindadi, Abdulkadir Abdulrashid, 2016. "Does the need for economic growth influence energy consumption and CO2 emissions in Nigeria? Evidence from the innovation accounting test," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1209-1225.
    6. Cowan, Wendy N. & Chang, Tsangyao & Inglesi-Lotz, Roula & Gupta, Rangan, 2014. "The nexus of electricity consumption, economic growth and CO2 emissions in the BRICS countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 359-368.
    7. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Hye, Qazi Muhammad Adnan & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Leitão, Nuno Carlos, 2013. "Economic growth, energy consumption, financial development, international trade and CO2 emissions in Indonesia," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 109-121.
    8. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Saboori, Behnaz & Soleymani, Abdorreza, 2016. "Economic growth and carbon emissions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 388-397.
    9. repec:ipg:wpaper:201415 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Ang, James B., 2007. "CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and output in France," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 4772-4778, October.
    11. Cerdeira Bento, João Paulo & Moutinho, Victor, 2016. "CO2 emissions, non-renewable and renewable electricity production, economic growth, and international trade in Italy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 142-155.
    12. Burnett, J. Wesley & Bergstrom, John C. & Wetzstein, Michael E., 2013. "Carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth in the U.S," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 1014-1028.
    13. Sahbi Farhani & Anissa Chaibi & Christophe Rault, 2014. "A study of CO2 emissions, output,energy consumption, and trade," Working Papers 2014-56, Department of Research, Ipag Business School.
    14. Menyah, Kojo & Wolde-Rufael, Yemane, 2010. "CO2 emissions, nuclear energy, renewable energy and economic growth in the US," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 2911-2915, June.
    15. Andrew Phiri, 2019. "Does Military Spending Nonlinearly Affect Economic Growth in South Africa?," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 474-487, June.
    16. Ahmad, Najid & Du, Liangsheng & Lu, Jiye & Wang, Jianlin & Li, Hong-Zhou & Hashmi, Muhammad Zaffar, 2017. "Modelling the CO2 emissions and economic growth in Croatia: Is there any environmental Kuznets curve?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 164-172.
    17. D. Hodge, 2006. "Inflation and growth in South Africa," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 30(2), pages 163-180, March.
    18. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Kumar Tiwari, Aviral & Nasir, Muhammad, 2013. "The effects of financial development, economic growth, coal consumption and trade openness on CO2 emissions in South Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1452-1459.
    19. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-582 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Esteve, Vicente & Tamarit, Cecilio, 2012. "Is there an environmental Kuznets curve for Spain? Fresh evidence from old data," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 2696-2703.
    21. Werner Antweiler & Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2001. "Is Free Trade Good for the Environment?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 877-908, September.
    22. Kohler, Marcel, 2013. "CO2 emissions, energy consumption, income and foreign trade: A South African perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1042-1050.
    23. Hlalefang Khobai & Pierre Le Roux, 2017. "The Relationship between Energy Consumption, Economic Growth and Carbon Dioxide Emission: The Case of South Africa," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 7(3), pages 102-109.
    24. Begum, Rawshan Ara & Sohag, Kazi & Abdullah, Sharifah Mastura Syed & Jaafar, Mokhtar, 2015. "CO2 emissions, energy consumption, economic and population growth in Malaysia," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 594-601.
    25. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-056 is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Apergis, Nicholas & Payne, James E. & Menyah, Kojo & Wolde-Rufael, Yemane, 2010. "On the causal dynamics between emissions, nuclear energy, renewable energy, and economic growth," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 2255-2260, September.
    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. Sofien, Tiba & Omri, Anis, 2016. "Literature survey on the relationships between energy variables, environment and economic growth," MPRA Paper 82555, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 14 Sep 2016.
    2. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Haouas, Ilham & Hoang, Thi Hong Van, 2019. "Economic growth and environmental degradation in Vietnam: Is the environmental Kuznets curve a complete picture?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 197-218.
    3. Bouznit, Mohammed & Pablo-Romero, María del P., 2016. "CO2 emission and economic growth in Algeria," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 93-104.
    4. Balsalobre-Lorente, Daniel & Shahbaz, Muhammad & Roubaud, David & Farhani, Sahbi, 2018. "How economic growth, renewable electricity and natural resources contribute to CO2 emissions?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 356-367.
    5. Phiri, Andrew, 2019. "Economic growth, environmental degradation and business cycles in Eswatini," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center (PRADEC), vol. 15(3).
    6. Ling, Chong Hui & Ahmed, Khalid & Muhamad, Rusnah binti & Shahbaz, Muhammad, 2015. "Decomposing the trade-environment nexus for Malaysia: What do the technique, scale, composition and comparative advantage effect indicate?," MPRA Paper 67165, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 09 Oct 2015.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Tiba, Sofien & Omri, Anis, 2017. "Literature survey on the relationships between energy, environment and economic growth," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1129-1146.
    10. 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.
    11. Omri, Anis & Daly, Saida & Rault, Christophe & Chaibi, Anissa, 2015. "Financial development, environmental quality, trade and economic growth: What causes what in MENA countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 242-252.
    12. Adebola Solarin, Sakiru & Al-Mulali, Usama & Ozturk, Ilhan, 2017. "Validating the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in India and China: The role of hydroelectricity consumption," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1578-1587.
    13. Jaforullah, Mohammad & King, Alan, 2017. "The econometric consequences of an energy consumption variable in a model of CO2 emissions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 84-91.
    14. Wang, Jing & Wan, Guanghua & Wang, Chen, 2019. "Participation in GVCs and CO2 emissions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    15. Ali, Wajahat & Abdullah, Azrai & Azam, Muhammad, 2017. "Re-visiting the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for Malaysia: Fresh evidence from ARDL bounds testing approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 990-1000.
    16. Pata, Ugur Korkut, 2018. "The influence of coal and noncarbohydrate energy consumption on CO2 emissions: Revisiting the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for Turkey," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 1115-1123.
    17. Mohamed Abdouli & Sami Hammami, 2017. "Economic growth, FDI inflows and their impact on the environment: an empirical study for the MENA countries," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 121-146, January.
    18. B. Mapapu & Andrew Phiri, 2018. "Carbon Emissions and Economic Growth in South Africa: A Quantile Regresison Analysis," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 8(1), pages 195-202.
    19. Ertugrul, Hasan Murat & Çetin, Murat & Şeker, Fahri & Dogan, Eyüp, 2015. "The impact of trade openness on global carbon dioxide emissions: Evidence from the top ten emitters among developing countries," MPRA Paper 97539, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Mar 2016.
    20. Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Kumar, Ronald Ravinesh & Zakaria, Muhammad & Hurr, Maryam, 2017. "Carbon emission, energy consumption, trade openness and financial development in Pakistan: A revisit," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 185-192.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Carbon Emissions; Economic growth; Environmental Kuznets curve; South Africa; Quantile regressions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation
    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy
    • 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

    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:pra:mprapa:81801. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.