Socio-economic determinants of environmental degradation: Empirical evidence for the Environmental Kuznets Curve

Abstract The aim of the paper is to examine socio-economic determinants of environmental degradation. The empirical study employs quantile regression which enables separate predictions for different levels of the dependent variable to be made. This study investigated 62 countries from low, middle and some high income countries for 1995–2019. The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is verified for the aforemented countries in analyzing the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions using quantile regression. The study also revealed that the schooling rate has a pollution-increasing effect. In addition to the reducing effects of trade openness, democracy, and economic freedom variables on environmental degradation, the opposite effect of life expectancy at birth is observed, increasing environmental degradation. In this context, this paper concluded that the EKC hypothesis is not supported. The government should encourage pollution-reducing policies in low and middle income countries.