Openness and the Environmental Kuznets Curve: Evidence from China

Kankesu Jayanthakumaran and Ying Liu

Economic Modelling, 2012, vol. 29, issue 3, 566-576

Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship in China between trade, growth and emissions using provincial-level data for water (chemical oxygen demand: COD) and air (sulphur dioxide: SO2). It analyses the period 1990–2007 in three steps. First, the income ‘turning point’ of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) has been estimated using quadratic log function and obtained a turning point consistent with existing studies. Second, adopting Dean's (2002) simultaneous equations system, the relationships between trade, growth and emissions has been estimated and the results confirm the dominance of scale effects over technique effects. Third, the estimated per capita turning point for EKC is used to split the provincial industrial database into two groups (below and above turning point income) and simultaneous equations are estimated separately for them. The split sample provided limited support for the trade-induced emissions hypothesis for COD, but not for SO2. At the provincial level rising incomes via increased levels of international trade were associated with falling COD due to the technique effect, so that rising incomes among the provinces tended to be associated with lower emissions. Stricter environmental regulations are required for growing incomes because they may encourage better production techniques.

Keywords: COD and SO2 emissions; Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC); Openness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999311002884
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:ecmode:v:29:y:2012:i:3:p:566-576

DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2011.12.011

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Modelling is currently edited by S. Hall and P. Pauly

More articles in Economic Modelling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().