Empirical study on the determinants of CO2 emissions: evidence from OECD countries

• Published in: Applied economics Vol. 44; no. 27; pp. 3513 - 3519
• Main Authors: Iwata, Hiroki, Okada, Keisuke, Samreth, Sovannroeun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 01.09.2012; Taylor and Francis Journals
• Series: Applied Economics
• Subjects: Air pollution; ARDL; Carbon emissions; Climate change; Cross-national analysis; EKC; emissions; Environmental economics; Environmental Kuznets Curve; Environmental management; Environmental policy; Industrial pollution; Kernenergie; Kointegration; nuclear; OECD; OECD-Staaten; Pollution control; Treibhausgas-Emissionen
• ISSN: 0003-6846; 1466-4283
• DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2011.577023

This article empirically investigates the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for CO 2 emissions in the cases of 11 OECD countries by taking into account the role of nuclear energy in electricity production. The autoregressive distributed lag approach to cointegration is employed as the estimation method. Our results indicate that energy consumption has a positive impact on CO 2 emissions in most countries in the study. However, the impact of trade is not statistically significant. The results provide evidence for the role of nuclear power in reducing CO 2 emissions only in some countries. Additionally, although the estimated long-run coefficients of income and its square satisfy the EKC hypothesis in Finland, Japan, Korea and Spain, only Finland's EKC turning point is inside the sample period of the study, providing poor evidence in support of the EKC hypothesis.