Authors

• Mohamad Hoseyn Poor Kazemi ¹
• Ilnaz Ebrahimi ²

¹ Associate Professor, University of Shahid Beheshti

² M.A in Economics

Abstract

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is an empirical inverted U-shaped relationship between pollution and income. In the early stages of economic growth, pollution increases but beyond some level of income per capita the trend reverses. In this paper, we examine the validity of EKC for a sample of 13 Middle East countries. Sample period include 1998-2003. A large number of EKC studies focus only on developed countries or a sample of developed and developing countries but for the first time our sample consist solely of emissions from Middle Eastern countries. We have used CO₂ as the main  pollutant factor in this study. Our log-log specification results suggest a monotonic and increasing relationship between income and pollution, but regression coefficients are not statistically significant. However, in our linear model all the coefficients are statistically significant and the EKC hypothesis can not be rejected.  

Keywords

• Environmental Kuznets Curve
• Air Pollution
• pollution control
• Middle East