Cultural and Political Determinants of Air Quality

Francisca Oliveira () and Alexandra Leitão ()

No 1, Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) from Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa

Abstract: This paper investigates empirically the determinants of air quality in a large cross-section of countries. We assess air quality by sulfur emissions and, following the literature, we consider three different groups of determinants: economic, political and cultural. We confirm the existence of an EKC for sulfur (inverted-U shaped relation between wealth and pollution). Political determinants are proxied by ethnic or religious fractionalization indexes and the country’s legal origin (we consider five possible legal origins: English common law, French civil law, German civil law, Scandinavian legal system and Socialist legal system). Cultural determinants are assessed by the percentage of a country’s population that belongs to one of the three main religions (Catholic, Muslim or Protestant). Our goal is to establish the economic, political and cultural profile of a country that manages to be efficient in providing good air quality. We conclude that a country will provide higher air quality if it has one or more of the following characteristics: it is ethnic and/or religious homogeneous, it has a German or Scandinavian legal tradition; it is Protestant.

Keywords: Air quality; political determinants; cultural determinants; environmental efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H40 H89 Q53 Q59 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2012-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cap:wpaper:012012

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