Explaining changes in global sulfur emissions: an econometric decomposition approach

Abstract

Changes in the emission of anthropogenic pollutants can be attributed to changes in input mix, output mix, scale, and the state of technical progress. I develop a non-linear emissions decomposition model and apply it to a panel data set for sulfur emissions in 64 countries from 1973 to 1990. The results show that though input and output mix are statistically significant and important in explaining emissions in individual countries, they make only a small contribution to changes in global emissions. Increasing scale and countervailing technical change explain most of the observed global change. I also estimate an environmental Kuznets curve model for the same dataset, which yields a monotonic emissions-income relation at the global level. This model does not explain as much variance as the decomposition model and has poorer statistical properties. A nested test of the two models shows that the EKC imposes significant restrictions on the general model, while the decomposition model does not.