Confronting the Environmental Kuznets Curve

Susmita Dasgupta, Benoit Laplante, Hua Wang and David Wheeler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2002, vol. 16, issue 1, 147-168

Abstract: The environmental Kuznets curve posits an inverted-U relationship between pollution and economic development. Pessimistic critics of empirically estimated curves have argued that their declining portions are illusory, either because they are cross-sectional snapshots that mask a long-run "race to the bottom" in environmental standards, or because industrial societies will continually produce new pollutants as the old ones are controlled. However, recent evidence has fostered an optimistic view by suggesting that the curve is actually flattening and shifting to the left. The driving forces appear to be economic liberalization, clean technology diffusion, and new approaches to pollution regulation in developing countries.

Date: 2002
Note: DOI: 10.1257/0895330027157
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (611)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/0895330027157 (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:aea:jecper:v:16:y:2002:i:1:p:147-168

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Perspectives is currently edited by Enrico Moretti

More articles in Journal of Economic Perspectives from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().