The Validity of the Tourism-induced EKC Hypothesis: The Case of Turkey

Abstract

This paper examines the existence of relationship between international tourist arrivals (TA), and Carbon dioxide emissions per capita (CO2) in Turkey over the period 1960-2015. We also use energy use per capita (EU) and GDP per capita (GDP) as a control variables. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test approach was applied to analyze the long-run relationship among the variables. The results confirmed the validity of the tourism-induced Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. An increased tourism demand increases environmental pollution up to a point where the sector attains a certain development level, after which emissions begin to fall. On the other hand, the results indicate that the EKC hypothesis between income and CO2 emissions has not been confirmed. Energy usage has positive and significant effects on carbon dioxide emissions as expected. For sustainable tourism and to the reduction of emissions in Turkey, environmental protection and the use of renewable energy should be supported by policy makers.