Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T01:21:39.246Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Testing for environmental Kuznets curves within a developing country

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2001

JEFFREY R. VINCENT
Affiliation:
Harvard Institute for International Development, 1 Eliot Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

Abstract

Previous studies of the association between pollution and income have tended to analyse cross-sectional or panel data for a sample of developing and developed countries. This paper presents an analysis for a single country, Malaysia. This south-east Asian country has more, and probably better, data on environmental quality than perhaps any other developing country. I find that pollution–income relationships from the cross-country studies fail to predict accurately trends in air and water pollution in Malaysia. In particular, none of six pollution-income relationships estimated using a panel data set for Malaysian states has the hypothesized 'environmental Kuznets curve' form. Although these results are inconsistent with the predictions of the cross-country relationships, they make sense in the Malaysian context. Perhaps most important, their interpretation confirms the importance of policy decisions in determining environmental outcomes.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1997 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)