Are greenhouse gas emissions converging in Latin America?

Ignacio Belloc and José Alberto Molina

No 1037, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: This paper investigates greenhouse gas emissions convergence among twenty Latin American countries, for the period 1970 to 2015. To that end, we use the Phillips-Sul methodology to examine whether these countries have followed an absolute convergence process or, whether there has been a club convergence process. Our results offer important insights into the greenhouse gas emissions catch-up exhibited by several countries, and do not support the hypothesis that all countries of the Latin American region, taken together, converge to a single equilibrium state in greenhouse gas emissions intensity. We find strong evidence of subgroups that converge to different steady states. An iterative testing procedure reveals the existence of different patterns of behavior and shows that such emissions are not uniform across these countries. We also identify the forces underlying the creation of clubs and the likelihood that any given country will be a member of any convergence club. Estimates from an ordered logit model reveal that economic structure, the unemployment rate, population density, and per-capita income play a crucial role in determining the formation of convergence clubs.

Keywords: Greenhouse gas emissions; Convergence analysis; global climate policy; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O54 Q01 Q50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:1037

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