Is democracy enough to get early turn of the environmental Kuznets curve in ASEAN countries?

Abstract

This research article investigates the impact of democracy on peak turning point of the environmental Kuznets curve in the context of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries that have different levels of development and democracy. For this purpose, time-series data for the period of 1980-2014 have been employed. The empirical findings support the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve for CO 2 emission in the ASEAN countries. It is also found that democracy measured by civil liberties delays the turning point of the environmental Kuznets curve and, therefore, increases the environmental cost of economic growth. The research output provides meaningful inputs to formulate an effective public policy for the protection of the environment in the ASEAN countries.

Economic growth, renewable energy consumption, and ecological footprint: Exploring the role of environmental regulations and democracy in sustainable development

“…Using quantile regression in emerging nations, Lv (2017) concluded that democracy curbs emissions only when the income level of nations exceeds a threshold level. In contrast, Gill et al (2019) suggested that DC delays the turning point of the EKC in the ASEAN and therefore, upsurges the ecological cost of economic growth. This contradicts the findings of Adams and Acheampong (2019) who found that renewable energy and DC both decrease emissions in African nations.…”

Human development associated with environmental quality in China

“…Thus, there exists an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution [2,3]. Recently, scholars have also added other variables to the EKC model, which include international trade [4,5], industrial structure [6,7], education [8], political democracy [9], and social corruption [10,11]. In contrast, other scholars use different pollutants and different quantitative analytical methods to further test the EKC hypothesis [12,13].…”

Revisited Globalization’s Impact on Total Environment: Evidence Based on Overall Environmental Performance Index

“…Some scholars stated that the impact of globalization on the environment varies among different countries (Hao, 2016; [12] Rudolph et al, 2017 [13]). Furthermore, there are also some problems among the existing empirical literature, such as only utilizing CO 2 emissions to represent environmental damage (Figge et al, 2017; [14] Gill et al, 2018 [15]), or merely paying attention to a specific dimension of globalization such as trade openness or foreign direct investment (Shahbaz et al, 2019;[16] Zafar et al, 2019 [6]), as well as only employing data for few countries (Shahbaz et al, 2018;[17] Akadiri et al, 2019 [18]).…”