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Beyond the Environmental Kuznets Curve: a comparative study of SO2 and CO2 emissions between Japan and China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2007

YUE YAGUCHI ,
TETSUSHI SONOBE  and
KEIJIRO OTSUKA
YUE YAGUCHI
Affiliation:
Faculty of International Development, Takushoku University, Japan
TETSUSHI SONOBE
Affiliation:
Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development, Japan
KEIJIRO OTSUKA
Affiliation:
Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development, GRIPS, 7-22-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-8677, Japan., Tel: +81-3-5413-6035. FAX: +81-3-5413-0016. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study is the first systematic attempt to test statistically the contrasting hypotheses on the emission of SO2 and CO2, and energy consumption in Japan and China for the last few decades. We postulate the hypotheses that local governments have incentives to internalize the local external diseconomies caused by SO2 emissions, but not the global external diseconomies caused by CO2 emissions. To substantiate our hypotheses, we decompose emissions of SO2 and CO2 into two factors: the emission factor (i.e. emission per energy use) and energy consumption. The results show that the prefectures where past energy consumption was high tend to reduce the emission factor of SO2 significantly in Japan, while we do not find such a tendency in China. There is also evidence that neither per capita income nor past energy consumption affects the CO2 emission factor and energy consumption significantly in both Japan and China, implying that an individual country has few incentives to reduce CO2 emissions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , June 2007 , pp. 445 - 470
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

We acknowledge two anonymous referees, Yujiro Hayami, and Kaliappa Kalirajan for their valuable comments and Paul Kandasamy for his editorial assistance. All remaining errors are ours.