Search results for " Kuznets curve"
showing 9 items of 9 documents
Fiscal adjustments and income inequality: a first assessment
2012
Using a statistical approach to identify fiscal adjustments, we find that fiscal consolidation appears to shorten the income gap. Fiscal austerity plans that succeed in bringing public debt to a sustainable path seem to be more likely to reduce inequality. Expansionary fiscal adjustments are particularly important to promote changes in the income distribution.
Inequality and poverty in a developing economy: Evidence from regional data (Spain, 1860-1930)
2015
Apart from measuring inequality and poverty at the provincial level in Spain between 1860 and 1930, this paper empirically assesses the relationship between economic growth and both inequality and destitution. The results, on the one hand, confirm the presence of a KuznetsÕ curve. However, although growing incomes did not directly contribute to reducing inequality, at least during the early stages of modern economic growth, other processes associated with economic growth significantly improved the situation of the bottom part of the population. On the other hand, growing incomes and lower inequality levels are shown to have been pro-poor.
DOMESTIC MATERIAL CONSUMPTION INDICATOR AND NATURAL RESOURCES: A EUROPEAN ANALYSIS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL KUZNETS CURVE
2014
The study investigates the relation between per capita Domestic Material Consumption indicator (DMC) and per capita income. Economic literature focuses mainly on air, water and land pollution while we consider as environmental degradation the consumption on natural resources extracted from the environment. Using a cross– European panel of countries over the period 2000-2011, our results confirm the absence of an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) between per capita DMC and per capita GDP both for EU-27 vs. 30 European countries and for Western vs. Eastern European countries. The turning points are so high that it is present a monotonic increasing relation between DMC indicator and GDP.
The instability of the adjusted and unadjusted environmental Kuznets curves
2006
We test the stability of the unadjusted and adjusted environmental Kuznets curves (EKCs). Our results provide evidence in favour of a theoretically funded "adjusted EKC hypothesis" in which the impact of per capita GDP on CO2 emissions is evaluated conditionally to the effects of the industry mix and of the energy-supply infrastructure. In this specification, the shape of the GDP-CO2 relationship appears quite sensitive to changes in the estimation period. In the final part of the paper, signs and dynamics of fixed effects of individual countries in different specifications are interpreted as measures of virtuous or vicious of environmental behaviour. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserve…
Neoclassical Growth, Environment and Technological Change: The Environmental Kuznets Curve
2009
The paper investigates socially optimal patterns of economic growth and environmental quality in a neoclassical growth model with endogenous technological progress. In the model, the environmental quality affects positively not only to utility but also to production. However, cleaner technologies can be used in the economy whether a part of the output is used in environmentally oriented R&D. In this framework, if the initial level of capital is low then the shadow price of a cleaner technology is low relative to the cost of developing it given by the marginal utility of consumption and it is not worth investing in R&D. Thus, there will be a first stage of growth based only on the accumulati…
Pollution and economic growth: a maximum likelihood estimation of environmental Kuznets curve
2011
As in Brock and Taylor (2011) in this paper we consider the importance of the relationship between the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) Literature and the Economic Growth Theories. To address this issue we construct country production functions that directly incorporate CO2 emissions as input and estimate them using Stochastic Frontiers. This approach differs from that of Brock and Taylor (2011) but is similar to the one followed by Koop (1998). By introducing the environmental “bads” directly in the production function, we can analyse their contribution to total output growth. We highlight an important contribution of CO2 emissions to growth and find out that the EKC seems not to hold, at…
The environmental Kuznets curve within European countries and sectors: greenhouse emission, production function and technology
2018
Based on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis and the technological change and the environment literature, our original contribution consists in analysing within the decomposition model the direct and indirect influence of technological change as well as the energy mix on CO2 emissions. Focusing on the dirtiest sectors of 25 EU countries in the period 1997-2005 and considering the endogeneity issue, we estimate an adjusted EKC relationship comparing a single equation model (univariate model) with a simultaneous equations system (bivariate model). Following Lopez (J Environ Econ Manag 27:163-184, 1994), a second equation is introduced where per capita income is a positive functio…
Toward a holistic understanding of pastoralism
2021
Pastoralism is globally significant in social, environmental, and economic terms. However, it experiences crises rooted in misconceptions and poor interdisciplinary understanding, while being largely overlooked in international sustainability forums and agendas. Here, we propose a transdisciplinary research approach to understand pastoralist transitions using (1) social, economic, and environmental dimensions, (2) diverse geographic contexts and scales to capture emerging properties, allowing for cross-system comparisons, and (3) timescales from the distant past to the present. We provide specific guidelines to develop indicators for this approach, within a social-ecological resilience anal…
How does fiscal consolidation impact on income inequality?
2012
In this paper, we assess the impact of fiscal consolidation on income inequality. Using a panel of 18 industrialized countries from 1978 to 2009, we find that income inequality significantly rises during periods of fiscal consolidation. In addition, while fiscal policy that is driven by spending cuts seems to be detrimental for income distribution, tax hikes seem to have an equalizing effect. We also show that the size of the fiscal consolidation program (in percentage of GDP) has an impact on income inequality. In particular, when consolidation plans represent a small share of GDP, the income gap widens, suggesting that the burden associated with the effort affects disproportionately house…