Effect of working time on environmental pressures: empirical evidence from EU-15, 1970–2010

Abstract

There is growing interest in the correlation between working time and environmental pressures, but prior empirical studies mostly focused on static methodologies. This article used dynamic panel regression approaches to examine and compare the relationship among western, southern, and northern European countries over the period 1970–2010, and proved the existence of strongly significant relationships in all models. Furthermore, this article detected the relationship between working hours and environmental indicators (carbon emission and energy use) at different phases. We contribute to a further understanding of the environmental effects of the working time reduction policy by comparing the differences among various periods and country groups in a system generalized method of moments (GMM) dynamic framework.