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Revisiting the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in India: the effects of energy consumption and democracy

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Abstract

The study revisits the position of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in India by incorporating the role of energy consumption and democratic regime in the environmental degradation function for the period 1971–2014. Employing Zivot–Andrews nonstationarity test, Bayer–Hanck cointegration test, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, and vector autoregressive model (VECM) Granger causality test, the results found the integration order of I(1) and a stable cointegration among the series. The result validates the EKC hypothesis for India and further divulges that while energy consumption increases environmental degradation both in the long run and short run; the effect of democracy in reducing environmental degradation is weak (statistically insignificant) in the long run but strong (statistically significant) in the short run. The finding from the VECM Granger causality test indicates a long-run causality between the fundamental variables and environmental degradation. Furthermore, the results of the short run show a unidirectional Granger causality running from energy consumption to environmental degradation, energy consumption to real income, and energy consumption to square of real income. Therefore, our findings suggest that energy conservation policy should be prioritized towards harnessing energy from clean sources to mitigate environmental degradation and spur economic growth.

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Notes

  1. To void the negative sign of value, rescaling approach is usually applied to convert the measure of democracy to values ranging from zero and above in order to provide nonspurious results. However, in the case of India, all the values are positives; hence, we used the variable directly without rescaling.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Economics, Eastern Mediterranean University, via Mersin 10, Gazimagusa, North Cyprus, Turkey

    Ojonugwa Usman & Ifedolapo O. Olanipekun

  2. Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics, University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria

    Paul Terhemba Iorember

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  1. Ojonugwa Usman
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  2. Paul Terhemba Iorember
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  3. Ifedolapo O. Olanipekun
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Correspondence to Ojonugwa Usman.

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Responsible editor: Muhammad Shahbaz

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Usman, O., Iorember, P.T. & Olanipekun, I.O. Revisiting the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in India: the effects of energy consumption and democracy. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 13390–13400 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-04696-z

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