Energy, Trade, Urbanization and Environmental Degradation Nexus in Sri Lanka: Bounds Testing Approach

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to fill the gap between energy and growth literature in Pakistan. In this regard, the authors investigated the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis and concluded the relationship between carbon emission and other four variables (energy consumption, economic growth, trade openness and population) at the same time. It is hoped that the policy implications of this research will provide a strong base to address the problem of environmental degradation in Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachThis study investigates the relationship between CO2 emission, economic growth, energy consumption, trade‐liberalization, and population density by using the EKC hypothesis for Pakistan. The cointegration analysis with Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing approach is employed over time series data from the period 1971 to 2008. The stability of model was also checked at the end.FindingsThe results of the study do not support EKC in a short‐run, whereas the long‐run inverted U shaped hypothesis was confirmed between carbon emission and growth, energy consumption, trade openness and population density. Thus, findings of the study confirmed that EKC was a long‐run phenomenon in the case of Pakistan and most interestingly, with all other explanatory variables, population density also appeared to be a contributor to environmental degradation in Pakistan.Originality/valueThis work is original and a new contribution to single country analysis. It is first time that carbon emission is empirically tested for all four major determinants (economic growth, energy consumption, trade‐liberalization, and population density) at the same time. The long ranged time series data of 38 years enhances the validity of results. The most surprising finding of this research is that the population density also contributes to environmental degradation in Pakistan.

Air pollution, global greenhouse gases (GHG), water pollution and water resources degradation are among the most serious environmental concerns that encounter the Qatar country. In nowadays, it is commonly known that the effects of environment degradation exceed its direct negative impacts on climate changes to cover its impacts on Human health, nation livelihood and cultural integrity. So, we advocate that understanding and determining factors explaining environmental degradation remain an important question of research. Moreover, by determining factors that explain environment degradation, policymakers, researchers and international institutions can help on recommending the adequate economic policies that can improve the environment quality and the live standing of inhabitants. In the empirical literature, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is the most powerful tool used to investigate the relationship between environment degradation and some macroeconomics and financial variables. Following the EKC hypothesis, the relationship between economic growth and environment degradation is inverted-U shaped. From the economic perspective, this means that initially economic growth increases environment degradation and then declines it after a threshold point of income per capita. More specifically, at initial level of economic growth, an increase in income is linked with an increase in energy consumption that raises environment degradation. After reaching a critical level of income, the spending on environment protection is increased, and hence environment degradation tend to decrease. From an econometrical or statistical perspectives, the EKC hypothesis have been firstly tested using the basic EKC equation which relies the environment degradation proxy to the real GDP and to a nonlinear term of the real GDP (the squared real GDP). If the EKC hypothesis holds then the real GDP and the squared real GDP have respectively a positive and negative signs. This EKC hypothesis has been firstly introduced by Kuznets (1955) when examining the relationship between economic growth and income inequality which shows that this relationship is inverted U-shaped. Grossman and Krueger (1995) are the first to examine this relationship between environment degradation and economic growth in their seminal paper published on the Quarterly Journal of Economics. They found that this relationship is inverted U-shaped which validates the EKC hypothesis. Empirically, until now no consensus has been reached about the true nature of the relation between real GDP and environment degradation. Evidence for the EKC hypothesis is very mixed. Overall, the results seem to depend in many factors including the specification, the pollutants and the econometrics technique used. First, empirical studies show that the results in term of positive and negative relationships as well as in term of magnitude differ significantly for the same country depend on the specification studied, linear, quadratic or cubic. Moreover, the inclusion of other factors in the right hand of the regression such as urbanization, trade openness, financial development and political stability have a significant impact on the magnitude of the income per capita variables coefficients. Second, the results differ significantly following the environment degradation proxy used. For instance, Horvath (1997) and Holtz-Eakin and Selden (1995) suggest that the use of global pollutants leads to continuously rise the levels of environment degradation or to a high levels of income per capita turning point, see also Esteve and Tamarit (2011). Third, the results also seem to depend in the econometric approach employed. In this paper, we investigate the case of the Qatar economy for several reasons. First, Qatar 2030 vision has given a high importance to questions related to air pollution, climate change and their impacts on economic sustainability. Second, the rapid increase of economic growth of the Qatar economy in the last two decades has been accompanied with an increase in energy consumption, urbanization and international trade. These factors are among the most important factors largely used in theoretical and empirical literature to explain environment degradation. Third, following the world health organization (WHO), local air pollution levels in Qatar has frequently exceeded recommended levels and are more time higher than the international standards. In fact, compared to the WHO's standards for PM10 for the 24-hour average and for the annual average concentration of 50 ug/m 3 and 20 ug/m 3 the Qatar's national air quality standards are far from these values. For instance, the values for PM10 is around 150 ug/m 3 for 24 hours average concentration and to 50 ug/m 3 for the annual average concentration. The data set used in this paper consists on macroeconomics and financial data, including CO 2 emissions, ecological foot print, real GDP per capita, energy use, urbanization, financial development and openness trade, to investigate the EKC hypothesis for the Qatar economy. All the dataset except the ecological foot print variable are collected from the world Bank's development indicators (WDI). The ecological footprint data is obtained from the National Footprint Accounts (NFAs) of the Global Footprint Network. This variable is employed as second proxy of environment quality measures. This data set used is a quarterly data and covers the period 1975Q1 to 2007Q4 for variables used for ecological footprint equation and covers the periods 1980Q1 to 2010Q4 for the CO 2 emissions equations variables. This paper contributes to the empirical literature of the EKC hypothesis in many ways. First, to our knowledge this paper is the first to consider the case of the Qatar economy as a single country to test the EKC hypothesis as well as the different directions of causality between variables. Second, in addition to the CO 2 emissions largely employed in the empirical literature, in this paper we employ also the ecological footprint as a new proxy of environmental degradation. Third, we use recent development of cointegration approach with structural breaks which is also rarely used for the case of EKC hypothesis. As tests of cointegration with shifts in the cointegration vector, we use the Gregory and Hansen (1996), Hatemi-J (2008) and to investigate the causal relationship between all variables using standard Granger causality tests. Fourth, to our knowledge this paper is the first study that uses Markov Switching Equilibrium Correction Model with shifts in both the intercept and the income per capita coefficient for the long run relationship between environment degradation and its key determinants. The empirical findings of this paper are useful for Qatari policymakers and especially for the ministry of environment of the Qatar government. Moreover, economic implications and economic policy are proposed and discussed. [1] P.O.Box: 2713-Doha-Qatar. Email: lcharfeddine@qu.edu.qa. Office: (+974) 4403-7764(+974) 4403-7764, Fax: (+974) 4403-5081. 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This paper attempts to examine the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for the BCIM-EC (Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar economic corridor) member countries under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China. Both time series and panel data are covered, with respect to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, GDP per capita, energy use, and trade openness. For panel data analysis, GDP per capita and energy consumption have positive effects on CO2, while the effect of the quadratic term of GDP per capita is negative in the short-run. However, the short-run effects do not remain valid in the long-run, except for energy use. Therefore, the EKC hypothesis is only a short-run phenomenon in the case of the panel data framework. However, based on the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach with and without structural breaks, the EKC hypothesis exists in India and China, while the EKC hypothesis holds in Bangladesh and Myanmar with regard to disregarding breaks within the short-run. The long-run estimates support the EKC hypothesis of considering and disregarding structural breaks for Bangladesh, China, and India. The findings of the Dumitrescu and Hurlin panel noncausality tests show that there is a unidirectional causality that runs from GDP per capita to carbon emission, squared GDP to carbon emission, and carbon emission to trade openness. Therefore, the BCIM-EC under the BRI should not only focus on connectivity and massive infrastructural development for securing consecutive economic growth among themselves, but also undertake a long-range policy to cope with environmental degradation and to ensure sustainable green infrastructure.

Over the last few decades, the atmospheric carbon dioxide emission has been amplified to a great extent in Turkey. This amplification may cause global warming, climate change and environmental degradation in Turkey. Consequently, ecological condition and human life may suffer in the near future from these indicated threats. Therefore, an attempt was made to test the relationship among a number of expected factors and carbon dioxide emissions in the case of Turkey. The study covers the time series data over the period of 1970–2017. We employed the modern econometric techniques such as Johansen co-integration, ARDL bound testing approach and the block exogeneity. The results of the Johansen co-integration test show that there is a significant long-run relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and expected factors. The long-run elasticities of the ARDL model show that a 1% increase in the GDP per capita, electric consumption, fiscal development and trade openness will increase carbon dioxide emissions by 0.14, 0.52, 0.09 and 0.20% respectively. Further, our findings reveal that the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis and inverted U-shaped relationship between carbon dioxide emission and economic growth prevails. Therefore, the EKC hypothesis is valid and prevailing in the Turkish economy. The diagnostic test results show that the parameters of the ARDL model are credible, sTable and reliable in the current form. Finally, Block exogeneity analysis displays that all the expected factors are contributing significantly to carbon dioxide emissions in the Turkish economy.

The effects of renewable energy, tourism, foreign direct investment, and income on environmental degradation have attracted the attention of many researchers, but to date, no researcher has examined the concurrent effects of these variables on CO2 emissions for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. Motivated by this gap in the literature, this study aims to analyze the determinants of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions under the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for six ASEAN countries. To this end, the study utilizes the panel ARDL estimator and the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test from 1995 to 2018. The results show that (i) tourism and foreign direct investment increase CO2 emissions. (ii) Real income and trade openness reduce environmental degradation. (iii) Since the long-run income elasticity is lower than the short-run, the EKC hypothesis is valid. (iv) Renewable energy reduces carbon emissions only in the short term and has no effect on environmental quality in the long term. There is also no causal relationship between renewable energy and environmental degradation. This could be due to the ineffective deployment of renewable energy in ASEAN countries. Based on these results, this study suggests that ASEAN countries should effectively use renewable energy, reduce the amount of fossil energy in the tourism sector, and support economic development to achieve a sustainable environment.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of economic growth, international trade and energy consumption on the global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, in the case of top CO2 emitters, namely, USA, Japan, Canada, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UK, Australia, Italy, France and Spain using the annual data from 1971 to 2013. Design/methodology/approach For this purpose, the time series, data technique is applied. Unit root test with structural break and the bounds testing approach for cointegration in the presence of structural break is tested. Finally, a vector error correction model for the Granger causality test is applied to detect the direction of causality. The authors have used the techniques that will help in examining the structural break in the time series data. Findings The results reveal that their exists a long-run relationship between CO2 emissions and its determinants in the USA, Canada, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Australia, Italy, France and Spain, energy consumption is the main determinant of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the long run and for direction of causality, the authors found bidirectional causality in the long run between energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the USA, Canada, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UK, and Granger causality running in opposite direction in the case of Australia from CO2 emissions to energy consumption was analyzed. In terms of growth-trade-pollution nexus (USA, Canada, Iran and France) hold one-way causality running from economic growth and trade openness to CO2 emissions (IV) the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis is validated only for the USA. Robust policy implications can be derived from this study. First, without harming the economy, these countries can reduce the use of energy consumption for lower pollution. Second, the amount of trade should be decreased to lower the emissions because the authors find that an increase in trade does Granger cause to CO2 emissions in the long run. Originality/value There has been no study that investigated the relationship between CO2 emissions, real income, consumption of energy and international trade in the environmental Kuznets relation for the top CO2 emitter’s countries over the period of 1971–2013. The authors did a comparative study of the empirical finding among these nations.

The environmental Kuznet curve (EKC) hypothesis suggests that at the initial stage of development, as the economy grows, environ-mental degradation rises until a turning point is reached whereby the pollution and degradation begins to decline while the economy continues to grow (it follows an inverted U curve). Is the environmental Kuznet curve (EKC) hypothesis applicable to Sri Lanka? What factors are responsible for environmental degradation in Sri Lanka? This study seeks to provide answers to these fundamental questions. Sri Lanka is one of the emerging economies in South Asia with an average annual growth rate of 4.16% in the last five years and the industrial sector contributing 25% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This hypothesis is tested for Sri Lanka. This study also investigated the major factors behind environmental pollution and degradation in Sri Lanka. Annual data from 1971-2014 was used in estimating the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation. Carbon (CO2) emission was used as a proxy for environmental degradation while real per capita income was used as a proxy for growth along with other explanatory variables. An autoregressive distributed lag model was used. Results showed that neither the EKC hypothesis nor the pollution haven hypothesis are applicable to Sri Lanka. Long term estimates revealed that increasing energy consumption leads to increasing CO2 emissions. Secondly, it was observed that energy consumption, urbanization, trade openness, tourism and financial development are among the key factors responsible for the quality of the environment. The policy implication is that the Sri Lankan Government, in conjunction with the private sector must adopt energy saving and environmental friendly technologies and production processes in order to save the environment.

A number of studies have already determined the existence of inverted U-shaped environmental Kuznets curve in Pakistan however the role of structural breaks in determining the relationship is yet to be investigated. The objective of this study was to determine if the presence of possible structural breaks explain the existence of environmental Kuznets curve type relationship in Pakistan for the period 1980-2016 by using data of total energy consumption, Real GDP per capita, foreign direct investment and trade openness. For the analysis the study first used the conventional time series econometric methods to determine the order of integration and Cointegration in the model. Second; as it is evident from the literature that presence of structural break in the model can have a significant impact, so the study used the Zivot and Andrews unit root test with one structural break to determine the order of integration in the model and Gregory-Hansen -Cointegration method to determine the presence of structural break within Cointegration framework. The results of the study not only confirm the existence of environmental Kuznets curve in the model, it also confirms the presence of structural break in the model.

Our pioneer study is aimed at investigating the role of the service sector in affecting sustainable environment in Pakistan. Using time series data over 1971–2014 and applying an autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) model with structural break analysis, we establish a long-term equilibrium relationship of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions with energy consumption, income level, services and trade openness. Our findings support a service-induced environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in Pakistan. The income level sharply raises environmental degradation at the early stage; however, after reaching a certain threshold, it improves environmental quality but at a lower rate. There exists an inverted U-shaped nexus between services and CO2 emissions, which implies that the service sector is less energy-intensive in terms of mitigating pollution in Pakistan. Moreover, the energy consumption has an inverted U-shaped effect on carbon emissions, which implies energy efficiencies and adoption of renewable energy has reduced pollution in the long run. The trade openness increases CO2 emissions in both the short term and long term. The quadratic term of income level has a negatively inelastic impact on CO2 emissions, which implies a very slow rate of improvement in environmental quality. On the other hand, the quadratic term of services shows a highly elastic impact on pollution, which induces the EKC hypothesis. Our robustness checks such as fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least squares (OLS), and Toda and Yamamoto (TY) causality tests further confirm the existence of the service-induced EKC hypothesis in Pakistan. Moreover, there exists a unidirectional causality from energy consumption to CO2 emissions, a bidirectional causal relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions, and a unidirectional causal linkage between services and CO2 emissions. Lastly, we discuss certain policy implications for designing appropriate environmental and energy policies to mitigate the pollution in Pakistan.

The technical decomposition of carbon emissions and the concerns about FDI and trade openness effects in the United States

PurposeBased on the hypothesis of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between environmental pollutants (as measured by CO2emissions) and GDP for India, over the period 1980–2012. The presence of an inverted “U” shape relationship is examined while controlling for factors such as the degree of trade openness, foreign direct investment, oil prices, the legal system and industrialization.Design/methodology/approachTo verify whether the EKC follows a linear, quadratic or polynomial form, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach for cointegration with structural breaks is adopted. The annual time series data for carbon emissions (CO2), economic growth (GDP), industrial development (industrialization), foreign direct investment and trade openness have been obtained from World Development Indicators online database. Crude oil price (international price index) for the period is collected from the International Monetary Fund. Data for total petroleum consumption are collected from the US Energy Information Agency. Data for economic freedom variables are from the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom Index's online database.FindingsThe findings support the existence of invertedU-shaped EKC in the short-run, but not in the long-run. A linear monotonic relationship has also been estimated in select model specifications. Additionally, trade openness has been estimated to reduce emissions in models, which incorporate FDI. Else, where significant, its impact on carbon emissions is adverse. A rise in fuel price leads to reduction in carbon emissions across model specifications. Further, the lower size of government degrades the environment both in the long-run and short-run.Practical implicationsGiven the existence of the pollution haven hypothesis, wherein more trade and foreign direct investments cause environmental degradation, the paper proposes formulation of appropriate regulatory mechanisms that are environmentally friendly. Additionally, India's new economic policies, favoring liberalization, privatization and globalization, reinforces the need to strengthen environmental regulations.Originality/valueIncorporation of economic freedom as measured by the “Size of Government” in the EKC model is unique. “Size of Government” deserves a special mention. The rationale for including this explanatory variable is to understand whether countries with lower government size are more polluting. After all, theory does suggest that goods and services, which have higher social cost vis-à-vis private cost, shall be overproduced in economies that adopt more market-friendly policies, necessitating government intervention. In the study, size of government is measured as per the definition and methodology adopted by Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of the World Index.

This paper aims at investigating the main economic determinants that contribute to greenhouse gases emissions in Ethiopia. By applying the bounds testing approach, the long and short-run impacts of economic growth, trade openness, and industry on air pollution in Ethiopia are estimated. The data set used in the estimation process covers the period (1981-2013). The study also attempts to find out whether the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis applies to the Ethiopian economy or not. Results indicate that both trade liberalization and industry, when they interact together, have adverse impacts on the environment in Ethiopia. Furthermore, there are still no evidences to support the existence of EKC in Ethiopia. Key words : Bounds testing approach, EKC hypothesis, Ethiopia, Greenhouse gas emissions, Economic growth, Foreign Trade, Industry.

This paper empirically verifies the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in Nigeria by focusing on the relationship between key sectors of the Nigerian economy and environmental degradation. The study adopted the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model using time series data for the period 1981-2018. The bounds-testing approach proposed by Pesaran, Shin and Smith, (2001) was adopted to test for cointegration. The results show a long-run relationship between economic growth (disaggregated into key sectors) and environmental degradation measured by carbon dioxide emissions. In the short run, agriculture, industry and services sectors significantly explained the variation in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, while the construction sector does not have any significant effect on Carbon emissions both in the current and the future periods. Specifically, the industrial sector has a positive effect on CO2 emissions which confirms the short-run EKC hypothesis; while agriculture and services though were significant, have a negative effect on CO2 emissions, invalidating the short-run EKC hypothesis. In the long run, industry and services sectors were significant in explaining variation in CO2 emission. However, while the services sector shows a negative relationship with CO2 emission in line with the long-run EKC Hypothesis, the industrial sector invalidates the hypothesis with a positive effect. These results imply that the key sectors of the economy have varied effects on environmental degradation, hence the hypothesis is inconclusive. Nigeria is therefore advised to pursue economic growth via industrial and services sectors with an emphasis on environmental sustainability, which could be achieved through the use of renewable and cleaner technology in nation-building.

This study explores the nexus among clean energy, economic growth, urbanization, trade openness, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions nexus in an emerging economy, Sri Lanka. An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) econometric technique and different diagnostic tests are used to investigate the linkages. The pairwise Graner causality approach is applied to investigate the causality direction. The estimated results have confirmed that clean energy and urbanization reduce carbon emissions, whereas trade openness induces carbon emissions in the long run in Sri Lanka. The findings revealed the non-existence of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in Sri Lanka. In contrast, the pollution haven hypothesis (PHH) exists between trade openness and carbon dioxide emissions in Sri Lanka. Regarding causal relationships, there is bi-directional causality between clean energy and urbanization. This study reports a unidirectional causality from clean energy to CO2 emissions, economic development to carbon emissions, urbanization and trade and CO2 emissions to urbanization and trade. Based on the above findings, this study recommends some policy recommendations.

Bounds testing approach to analyzing the environment Kuznets curve hypothesis with structural beaks: The role of biomass energy consumption in the United States