Analysis of the Effect of Democracy on Environmental Quality: a threshold regression approach

Analyse de l'effet de la démocratie sur la qualité de l'environnement: une approche de régression de seuil

José Prudence Fongnikin () and Magloire Lanha ()
Additional contact information
José Prudence Fongnikin: LEP/UAC - Université d’Abomey-Calavi / Laboratoire d’Économie Publique (LEP), Bénin
Magloire Lanha: LEP/UAC - Université d’Abomey-Calavi / Laboratoire d’Économie Publique (LEP), Bénin

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This study identifies the relationship between the characteristics of democratic systems and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Using a panel dataset covering over 110 countries from 1961 to 2022 and employing a threshold model, this study examines how democracy influences environmental quality. The findings from the analyses reveal that in a thriving democracy, freedom of expression is an effective means of improving environmental quality by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Conversely, the concentration of political power hinders the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It is observed that when political power is centralized in the hands of the executive branch, excluding opportunities for oversight of government actions, the economy becomes increasingly emission-intensive, thereby degrading environmental quality. It is also noted that at a low level of GDP per capita, greenhouse gas emissions increase, but when GDP per capita rises to a certain threshold, greenhouse gas emissions decrease. This demonstrates the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis for all countries in the study. These results highlight the need to develop appropriate climate policies while strengthening participatory and institutional mechanisms within democracies to optimize their impact on environmental sustainability.

Keywords: Démocratie; Gaz à effet de serre; Environnement; Politique climatique.; African Scientific Journal; Democracy Greenhouse gases Environment Climate policy; Democracy; Greenhouse gases; Environment; Climate policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-03-10
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04985530v1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in African Scientific Journal, 2025, ⟨10.5281/zenodo.14999320⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-04985530v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04985530

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14999320

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().