Revisiting the environmental Kuznets curve: Evidence from West Africa

  • Received February 23, 2021;
    Accepted April 16, 2021;
    Published May 6, 2021
  • Author(s)
  • DOI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ee.12(1).2021.06
  • Article Info
    Volume 12 2021, Issue #1, pp. 64-75
  • TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ
  • Cited by
    3 articles
  • 780 Views
  • 247 Downloads

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

This paper analyzes the revenue-pollution relationship by revisiting the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for West African countries over the period of 1980–2014. The study approximates the income measurement by GDP per capita and uses carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxide (NO2), and methane emissions as various environmental quality measures. The paper uses parametric and non-parametric estimation techniques to test the EKC hypothesis. The results support the existence of the U-inverted relationship between income and methane emission, on one hand, and between income and nitrogen dioxide emission on the other. The estimates also show a mixed result for the U-inverted hypothesis between income and carbon dioxide emissions. Thus, the verification of the curve depends on the estimation techniques and the measurement of the pollutant used. The obtained results led to the conclusion that the EKC hypothesis is validated for West African countries.

view full abstract hide full abstract
    • Figure 1. Partial adjustment of the income-CO2 emission relationship
    • Figure 2. Partial adjustment of the income-NO2 emission relationship
    • Figure 3. Partial adjustment of the income-methane emission relationship
    • Table 1. Variables and units of measure
    • Table 2. Descriptive statistics
    • Table 3. Correlations
    • Table 4. Estimates with CO2 emissions
    • Table 5. Estimate with N02 emissions
    • Table 6. Estimate with methane emissions
    • Conceptualization
      Yao Silvère Konan
    • Data curation
      Yao Silvère Konan, Kodjo Aklobessi
    • Formal Analysis
      Yao Silvère Konan, Kodjo Aklobessi
    • Funding acquisition
      Yao Silvère Konan
    • Investigation
      Yao Silvère Konan, Kodjo Aklobessi
    • Methodology
      Yao Silvère Konan, Kodjo Aklobessi
    • Project administration
      Yao Silvère Konan
    • Resources
      Yao Silvère Konan
    • Software
      Yao Silvère Konan
    • Supervision
      Yao Silvère Konan
    • Validation
      Yao Silvère Konan
    • Visualization
      Yao Silvère Konan
    • Writing – original draft
      Yao Silvère Konan
    • Writing – review & editing
      Yao Silvère Konan