Economic growth and pollutant emissions in Tunisia: An empirical analysis of the environmental Kuznets curve

By Mouez Fodha, Oussama Zaghdoud. 2010

671 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper investigates the relationship between economic growth and pollutant emissions for a small and open developing country, Tunisia, during the period 1961-2004. The investigation is made on the basis of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis, using time series data and cointegration analysis. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) are used as the environmental indicators, and GDP as the economic indicator. Our results show that there is a long-run cointegrating relationship between the per capita emissions of two pollutants and the per capita GDP. An inverted U relationship between SO2 emissions and GDP has been found, with income turning point approximately equals to $1200 (constant 2000 prices) or to $3700 (in PPP, constant 2000 prices). However, a monotonically increasing relationship with GDP is found more appropriate for CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the causality results show that the relationship between income and pollution in Tunisia is one of unidirectional causality with income causing environmental changes and not vice versa, both in the short-run and long-run. This implies that an emission reduction policies and more investment in pollution abatement expense will not hurt economic growth. It could be a feasible policy tool for Tunisia to achieve its sustainable growth in the long-run.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/09905516b157e26354800f0678280a93e67c396a

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Citations in the corpus

A test of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for carbon emission and potential of renewable energy to reduce green house gases (GHG) in Malaysia (2018, background): “…(2013), Alvarado and Toledo (2016), Ansuategi and Escapa (2002), Brajer et al. (2008), Chiu 1104 A. R. Gill et al. (2012), Farhani et al. (2014), Fodha and Zaghdoud (2010) and Orubu and Omotor (2011) found the EKC transition true for the pollutants that have local and regional dimensions and…”
Renewable Energy Consumption and Agriculture: Evidence for Cointegration and Granger causality for Tunisian Economy (2017, neutral): “…Belloumi, 2009; Ben Jebli and Ben Youssef, 2015a, 2015b; Ben Jebli et al., 2015; Chebbi et al., 2011; Chouaibi and Abdessalem, 2011; Fallahi, 2011; Fodha and Zaghdoud, 2010; Halicioglu, 2009; Ozturk and Acaravci, 2010; Ozcan, 2013; Sadorsky, 2009a, b, 2011, 2012; Shahbaz et al., 2013, 2014; Tugcu…”
Relationships among carbon emissions, economic growth, energy consumption and population growth: Testing environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis for Brazil, China, India and Indonesia (2016, background): “On the other hand, some studies (Arouri, Ben Youssef, M'Henni, & Rault, 2012; Esteve & Tamarit, 2012a; Fodha & Zaghdoud, 2010) found that the relationship between CO2 emissions and economic growth is linear.”
Trade Openness and Carbon Emissions: Evidence from Belt and Road Countries (2019, background): “[48] examined the EKC framework in their research, but their analysis showed a scope of inconsistent outcomes.”