Department of Economics, Abdullah Gül University, Turkey.
Department of Economics, Erciyes University, Turkey.
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Jun 25;723:138063. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138063. Epub 2020 Mar 19.
A vast body of literature estimates the impact of economic growth on environmental degradation in the framework of EKC model. Typical empirical studies proxy environmental degradation with CO emissions; however, this indicator does not consider the complex nature of environmental degradation. To fulfill this omission, ecological footprint that tracks the use of multiple categories of productive surface areas is used as proxy for the environment. Moreover, studies that do not consider issues of heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence may not produce reliable outcomes. Hence, the present study re-investigates the validity of the EKC hypothesis for BRICST (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Turkey) by using ecological footprint and considering the mentioned issues in the estimation process. Based on the annual data covering the period of 1980-2014, excluding Russia due to data unavailability, empirical results show that the EKC hypothesis is not valid, and energy intensity and energy structure are important determinants of environmental degradation. In line with the empirical outputs, possible policy suggestions are discussed in the present study.
大量文献在 EKC 模型框架内估计了经济增长对环境恶化的影响。典型的经验研究用 CO2 排放来代理环境恶化；然而，这个指标并没有考虑环境恶化的复杂性质。为了弥补这一遗漏，使用生态足迹来跟踪多种生产面积类别的使用情况，作为环境的代理。此外，不考虑异质性和横截面相关性问题的研究可能不会产生可靠的结果。因此，本研究通过使用生态足迹并在估计过程中考虑到这些问题，重新检验了 BRICST（巴西、俄罗斯、印度、中国、南非、土耳其）的 EKC 假说的有效性，其中俄罗斯由于数据不可用而被排除在外。基于涵盖 1980-2014 年期间的年度数据，实证结果表明 EKC 假说并不成立，能源强度和能源结构是环境恶化的重要决定因素。根据实证结果，本研究讨论了可能的政策建议。
