Title: Investigation of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for the MINT countries: the ecological footprint approach

Authors: Ali Eren Alper; F. Özlem Alper

Addresses: Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University, Central Campus, 51240, Turkey ' Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University, Central Campus, 51240, Turkey

Abstract: According to the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, as the per capita income of a country increases at the initial phases of economic development, the level of pollution also rises. However, once a certain threshold value is exceeded, the growth in per capita income reduces economic pollution. The EKC hypothesis claims the presence of an inverted U-shaped association between growth in income and environmental pollution. This study aims to ascertain the validity of the EKC hypothesis using ecological footprint and environmental pollution variables for MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey) countries. According to the results obtained from the ARDL bounds test performed by following the Narayan and Narayan (2010) methodology, the EKC hypothesis is found valid for Mexico, Nigeria, and Turkey, since the short-term elasticities of the growth in per capita income exceeds the long-term elasticities in the countries.

Keywords: environmental Kuznets curve; EKC; ecological footprint; ARDL bounds test; MINT.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEBR.2022.124283

International Journal of Economics and Business Research, 2022 Vol.24 No.1/2, pp.91 - 115

Received: 15 Jun 2020
Accepted: 04 Dec 2020
Published online: 21 Jul 2022 *

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