Analysis of the New Kuznets Relationship: Considering Emissions of Carbon, Methanol, and Nitrous Oxide Greenhouse Gases—Evidence from EU Countries

Mara Madaleno and Victor Moutinho
Additional contact information
Mara Madaleno: GOVCOPP—Research Unit in Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policy, Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism (DEGEIT), University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Victor Moutinho: Management and Economics Department and NECE-UBI, University of Beira Interior, Rua Marquês d’Ávila e Bolama, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 6, 1-23

Abstract: Decreased greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are urgently needed in view of global health threat represented by climate change. The goal of this paper is to test the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, considering less common measures of environmental burden. For that, four different estimations are done, one considering total GHG emissions, and three more taking into account, individually, the three main GHG gases—carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), nitrous oxide (N 2 O), and methane gas (CH 4 )—considering the oldest and most recent economies adhering to the EU27 (the EU 15 (Old Europe) and the EU 12 (New Europe)) separately. Using panel dynamic fixed effects (DFE), dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) techniques, we validate the existence of a U-shaped relationship for all emission proxies considered, and groups of countries in the short-run. Some evidence of this effect also exists in the long-run. However, we were only able to validate the EKC hypothesis for the short-run in EU 12 under DOLS and the short and long-run using FMOLS. Confirmed is the fact that results are sensitive to models and measures adopted. Externalization of problems globally takes a longer period for national policies to correct, turning global measures harder and local environmental proxies more suitable to deeply explore the EKC hypothesis.

Keywords: greenhouse gas emissions (GHG); gross domestic product per capita (GDPpc); Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC); former European Union (EU 15) countries; new European Union (EU 12) countries; fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS); dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/2907/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/2907/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:6:p:2907-:d:515744

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().