Investigating the Presence of Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis in India and China: An Autoregressive Distributive Lag Approach

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis advocates a reversed U-shaped association between different pollutants and per capita income. EKC postulates that speedy growth certainly results in environmental degradation due to glut use of natural resources and emission of pollutants. The study used carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, economic growth, energy consumption, and the annual growth rate of population to investigate the EKC hypothesis in India and China for the period of 1971–2013. Furthermore, to explore the long-run and short-run relationship among competing variables, the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) is used. Granger causality test is used to investigate the long-run and short-run causality between variables under study. The results support the EKC hypothesis in India and China, in both long-run and short-run, and inverse U-shaped association is found between CO2 emission and economic growth. Unidirectional causality seen in both countries in terms of economic growth and CO2 emissions. In addition, the coefficient of economic growth in a short-run model provides the evidence that there has been a gradual decline in environmental degradation (downward sloping of EKC) and the quality of the environment is gradually improving in China. Based on the findings, the study suggests that environmental policymakers, especially in India, should seriously address the issue of CO2 emissions as it has a tendency to move faster in the coming years.