This article attempts to test the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for river water pollution for a panel dataset of 15 districts of Uttar Pradesh. There are sharp socio-economic and demographic variations within India; therefore, a regional study can give a better insight into the pollution income relationship of a specific region compared to a national study. Panel unit root tests, Pedroni cointegration test and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) method have been employed to investigate EKC for two water pollutants—biochemcial oxygen demand (BOD) and total coliform (TC). Findings suggest that there is no evidence of an EKC for BOD, but results validate the existence of an EKC for TC. The Swachha Bharat Mission launched in 2014 aimed at eliminating open defecation and increasing toilet access in rural India can be a credited for the reduction in TC levels since 2014. The success of NAMAMI Gange so far seems to be localised to regions where political thrust has expedited the completion of projects.

This study attempts to investigate the impact of economic growth, energy use and research and development expenditure on carbon dioxide emissions for a panel of 29  Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) countries over 1995-2019. We employ two sets of econometric techniques.The first set of estimation techniques assumes cross sectional independence in the panel (also known as the first generation tests). The first generation tests include the panel unit root tests- Levin et al ( LLC), Im et al (IPS) ADF-Fisher and PP-Fisher unit root tests, Pedroni (1999) and Kao cointegration tests and the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) for computing output elasticities. The second set of econometric tests are performed after checking for cross sectional dependence using the second generation tests. These include Pesaran CD test, Breusch Pagan CD test, to establish cross sectional dependence followed by Cross-sectional augmented Im-Pesaran-Shin (CIPS) panel unit root test developed by Pesaran (2007)to test for panel stationarity followed by the error correction based panel cointegration test proposed by Westerlund and Edgerton (2007) with bootstrap. Augmented Mean Group (AMG) is performed to estimate output elasticities while Dumitrescu-Hurlin (DH) Panel Causality tests is done to ascertain causality between variables   We obtain the same results for the effect of GDP and energy use on carbon emissions from  the two strategies but conflicting results for the impact of research and development spending on carbon emissions, although there is evidence of stronger cointegration under the first generation tests. Based on findings from the two approaches, we conclude that with a rise in GDP, carbon emissions fall in OECD but increase with a rise in energy use. Aggregate research and development expenditure has a positive effect on carbon emissions under cross sectional independence but a neutral effect when estimated using cross-sectional dependence tests giving inconclusive results.

This article attempts to test the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for export diversification and river water pollution (proxied by biochemical oxygen demand) for India during the period from 1986 to 2019. Over the past decade, India’s merchandise exports have been dominated by pollution-intensive industries such as mineral fuels, pharmaceuticals, nuclear reactors, organic chemicals and electrical machinery, iron and steel, and textiles. Additionally, India’s export mix is weakly diversified or a small number of commodities form the merchandise export basket. River water pollution is one of the gravest ecological threats in this country. Although a host of reasons define this ecological devastation, this study attempts to investigate if the weakly diversified, pollution-intensive export basket has any link with biochemical oxygen demand. Dickey–Fuller (ADF) and Philip–Perron (PP) tests are employed to determine the stationary properties of the variables and the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration test, as well as the bounds test to check the short- and long-run cointegration. Findings suggest that (a) export diversification is strongly cointegrated with biochemical oxygen demand both in the short and in the long run, and (b) the conventional inverted U-shaped EKC was not validated. Furthermore, a weakly diversified export basket increases water pollution. Suggested policy initiatives to combat industrial water pollution include the introduction of economic instruments. The water pollution abatement experience of industrial clusters suggests that radical institutional and governance reforms are paramount for successful policy reforms. Finally, there is a need to reduce the export commodity basket concentration not just to insulate the economy against global dynamics but also for achieving the goal of sustainable development. JEL codes: F18, Q56, Q53. Q580