Explaining environmental Kuznets curves: How pollution induces policy and new technologies

Lucas Bretschger and Sjak Smulders ()

No 12/2000, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Diskussionspapiere from University of Greifswald, Faculty of Law and Economics

Abstract: Production often causes pollution as a by-product. Once pollution problems become too severe, regulation is introduced by political authorities which forces the economy to make a transition to cleaner production processes. We model this transition as a change in general purpose technology (GPT) and investigate how it interferes with economic growth driven by qualityimprovements. The model gives an explanation for the inverted U-shaped relationship found in empirical research for many pollutants, often referred to as the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). We provide an analytical foundation for the claim that the rise and decline of pollution can be explained by policyinduced technology shifts.

Keywords: Environmental Kuznets curve; general purpose technology; growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O41 Q20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/48905/1/322739268.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Explaining Environmental Kuznets Curves: How Pollution Induces Policy and New Technologies (2000)
Working Paper: Explaining Environmental Kuznets Curves: How Pollution Induces Policy and New Technologies (2000)
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:zbw:grewdp:122000

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Diskussionspapiere from University of Greifswald, Faculty of Law and Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().