Sultana Nahid, Rahman Mohammad Mafizur, Khanam Rasheda
School of Business, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia.
Department of Economics, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Environ Dev Sustain. 2022;24(4):5426-5450. doi: 10.1007/s10668-021-01665-w. Epub 2021 Aug 2.
This study has investigated the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis and focuses on the resource stock of the country in relation to the selection of environmental degradation indicators. Acknowledging the critical role of the EKC for policy formulation and development strategies, this study has examined the validity of the EKC hypothesis by exploring the relationship between economic growth, urbanization, energy consumption, trade openness, human capital and ecological footprints for the period 1972-2018 in Bangladesh. The autoregressive distributive lag bounds testing approach is applied for this purpose, taking into account the structural break in the time series. A fully modified OLS estimation has also been applied as the robustness check of the results. Results from the empirical analysis confirm the existence of the EKC in Bangladesh in both the long run and short run. The causal nexus among the variables is examined by applying the Vector Error Correction Granger causality test. The causality test result shows that economic growth and urbanization cause ecological footprints in both the short run and the long run. Based on this result, it can be inferred that economic growth activities in Bangladesh can be continued and extended with minimal ecological cost through structural economic change and proper environmental management.
本研究调查了环境库兹涅茨曲线（EKC）假说，并重点关注该国的资源存量与环境退化指标选择之间的关系。认识到EKC在政策制定和发展战略中的关键作用，本研究通过探讨1972 - 2018年期间孟加拉国经济增长、城市化、能源消耗、贸易开放度、人力资本与生态足迹之间的关系，检验了EKC假说的有效性。为此，考虑到时间序列中的结构断点，应用了自回归分布滞后边界检验方法。还应用了完全修正的OLS估计作为结果的稳健性检验。实证分析结果证实了孟加拉国在长期和短期内均存在EKC。通过应用向量误差修正格兰杰因果检验来检验变量之间的因果关系。因果检验结果表明，经济增长和城市化在短期和长期内都会导致生态足迹。基于这一结果，可以推断，通过结构性经济变革和适当的环境管理，孟加拉国的经济增长活动可以以最小的生态成本持续和扩展。
