The empirical relationship between environment and growth – EKC

The project studies the reduced-form empirical relationship between pollution and growth. This relationship is known as Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC).
The aim is to analyse the relationship in terms of its empirical performance and robustness. In particular, issues such as functional form specification, non-parametric estimation, inclusion and omission of relevant explanatory variables other than income, and alternative datasets, are considered. The ultimate goal is that of ascertaining whether or not EKCs are a useful tool of applied environmental analyses. Current research focuses on two topics:

• the robustness of panel integration and co-integration tests for assessing the existence of the EKC;
• the empirical relationship between demographic transition and environmental transition.