Abstract
The aim of the paper is to investigate how the location of non-carbon ecological footprint (home or abroad) changes along with environmental regulation. Ecological footprint measures the amount of biocapacity required to sustain the consumption patterns of human beings. Employing panel data analysis, the relationship between income and footprints that result from domestic production and importsis investigated for 87 countries during the period 2004-2010 within the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) framework. We find that an EKC relationship cannot be validated for income (GDP per capita) and non-carbon footprints of production and of imports. Besides, the analysis shows that countries reach the turning points for import footprint at lower levels of income once stringency of environmental regulation and enforcement of environmental regulation are accounted for. Environmental regulations push the economic structure towards a cleaner transformation by which resources can be exploited more effectively, and short run losses in economic growth can be avoided in the medium and long run, conditional on a successful transformation toward higher value-added and cleaner production processes.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 927-936 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Journal of Cleaner Production |
| Volume | 178 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 20 Mar 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018 Elsevier Ltd
Funding
We are grateful to The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) for the financial support under the 3001 Scientific and Technological Research Projects Funding Program No: 115K002 . We also would like to thank two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and the Global Footprint Network for the generous provision of the ecological footprint dataset. Appendix Table A1 Data Units and Sources Table A1 Variable Unit Source efmnc /Non-carbon import footprint per capita Global hectares (gha) Global Footprint Network, 2015 efpnc /Non-carbon production footprint per capita Global hectares (gha) Global Footprint Network, 2015 Gdp /GDP per capita Constant thousand USD, in 2000 prices World Development Indicators (WDI) Open /Openness to trade exports + imports (% of GDP) WDI Bio /Biological capacity Global hectares (gha) Global Footprint Network, 2015 Popden /Population density 1000 people per sq. km of land area WDI Ind /Industry share Value added of manufacturing (% of GDP) WDI Enpct /Energy use per capita Tonne of oil equivalent WDI Ereg /Stringency of environmental regulation 1 = very lax; 7 = among the world's most stringent World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey 2008 Enfo /Enforcement of environmental regulation 1 = very lax; 7 = among the world's most rigorous World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey 2008 We are grateful to The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) for the financial support under the 3001 Scientific and Technological Research Projects Funding Program No: 115K002. We also would like to thank two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and the Global Footprint Network for the generous provision of the ecological footprint dataset.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| TÜBİTAK | 115K002 |
| Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştirma Kurumu | |
| National Council for Scientific Research |
Keywords
- Economic growth
- Environmental Kuznets curve
- Environmental regulations
- Non-carbon footprint
- Pollution haven
