Nature and economic growth in Turkey: what does ecological footprint imply?

This study investigates the income–environment relationship in Turkey by examining the components of the ecological footprint indicator within the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) framework. Using co-integration techniques for the 1961–2008 period, we find an inverted U-shaped, hence EKC-type, relationship only between production footprint and income. Consumption, import and export footprints are found to be monotonically increasing with income, which suggests that Turkey tends to export the negative consequences of its consumption by importing rather than producing domestically the environmentally harmful products. We also find that imported footprint is not enough to cover the biocapacity deficit in Turkey, which results in a continuous decline in domestic biocapacity.