Abstract
This study is the first attempt to investigate the relationship between CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and economic growth at a state level, for the 50 US states, through a time-varying causality approach using annual data over the periods 1960–2010. The time-varying causality test facilitates the better understanding of the causal relationship between the covariates owing to the fact that it might identify causalities when the time-constant hypothesis is rejected. Our findings indicate the existence of a time-varying causality at the state level. Specifically, the results probe eight bidirectional time-varying causalities between energy consumption and CO2 emission, six cases of two-way time-varying causalities between economic growth and energy consumption, and five bidirectional time-varying causalities between economic growth and CO2 emission. Moreover, we examine the traditional environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for the states. Notably, our results do not endorse the validity of the EKC, albeit the majority of states support an inverted N-shaped relationship. Lastly, we can identify multiple policy implications based on the empirical results.
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Notes
We used this time period due to limitation of data set
Alaska (AK), Alabama (AL), Arkansas (AR), Arizona (AZ), California (CA), Colorado (CO), Connecticut (CT), Delaware (DE), Florida (FL), Georgia (GA), Hawaii (HI), Iowa (IA), Idaho (ID), Illinois (IL), Indiana (IN), Kansas (KS), Kentucky (KY), Louisiana (LA), Massachusetts (MA), Maryland (MD), Maine (ME), Michigan (MI), Minnesota (MS), Missouri (MO), Mississippi (MS), Montana (MT), North Carolina (NC), North Dakota (ND), Nebraska (NE), New Hampshire (NH), New Jersey (NJ), New Mexico (NM), Nevada (NV), New York (NY), Ohio (OH), Oklahoma (OK), Oregon (OR), Pennsylvania (PA), Rhode Island (RI), South Carolina (SC), South Dakota (SD), Tennessee (TN), Texas (TX), Utah (UT), Virginia (VA), Vermont (VT), Washington (WA), Wisconsin (WI), West Virginia (WV), Wyoming (WY)
The software R (https://www.r-project.org/) is used to conduct all statistical analyses.
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We would like to thank the editor Philippe Garrigues and the reviewers for their constructive comments on an earlier version of our manuscript. Any remaining errors are solely the authors’ responsibility.
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Tzeremes, P. Time-varying causality between energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and economic growth: evidence from US states. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 6044–6060 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-0979-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-0979-x