Environmental Kuznets curves—real progress or passing the buck ...

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D.S. Rothman / Ecological Economics 25 (1998) 177–194
Table 1
Quadratic fits to consumption data
Commodity
Fitted equation a Adjusted r 2
Turning point b
Food, beverages, and 79.36 (1.7)+0.21 (10.8)×(GDP/capita)−7.98×10 −6 (6.1)
tobacco
(GDP/capita) 2
Clothing and footwear 58.41 (2.6)+0.04 (4.4)×(GDP/capita)−5.61×10 −7 (0.9) (GDP/
0.8893 12 889
0.7890 35 263
0.8158 23 278
0.9197
Gross rent, fuel and power −44.62 (0.5)+0.20 (5.4)×(GDP/capita)−4.25×10 −6 (1.7)
capita) 2
House furnishings and 0.16 (0.0)+0.04 (5.7)×(GDP/capita)+1.79×10 −7 (0.4) (GDP/
(GDP/capita) 2
operations
capita) 2
Medical care and services −101.81 (1.6)+0.12 (4.6)×(GDP/capita)−1.30×10 −6 (0.7) 0.8270 47 171
Transport and communicacapita)
(GDP/capita) 2
55.29 (1.9)+0.00 (0.1)×(GDP/capita)+4.93×10 −6 (6.1) (GDP/ 0.9236
tions
2
Recreation, entertainment, 20.03 (0.4)+0.10 (4.5)×(GDP/capita)+1.17×10 −7 (0.1) (GDP/ 0.8684
education, etc. capita) 2
Other −39.08 (0.6)+0.06 (2.2)×(GDP/capita)+2.05×10 −6 (1.1) 0.7652
0.4949
13 169
Grains and starches 80.99 (2.7)+0.07 (5.4)×(GDP/capita)−3.44×10 −6 (4.0) (GDP/
9830
(GDP/capita) 2
Meat and animal products 3.42 (0.2I)+0.08 (9.2)×(GDP/capita)−3.03×10 −6 (5.1) (GDP/ 0.8591
capita) 2
Other foods, beverages and
capita) 2
14.27 (0.5)+0.06 (5.7)×(GDP/capita)−1.91×10 −6 (2.5) (GDP/ 0.7700 16 357
tobacco
capita) 2
a Equations fitted to data provided by phase V of the United Nations International Comparison Programme (United Nations, 1994).
Values in italic and parentheses are absolute values of the t-statistics for the coefficients.
b Turning points only calculated for equations with negative coefficients on GDP 2 .
provide an initial indication whether these relationships
show an inverted-U type of behavior
that might support the EKC hypothesis. Table 1
summarizes these relationships. Although composition,
in terms of shares, does change with income,
this is due principally to differences in
relative growth between categories and not actual
declines in consumption of any single commodity.
The only commodity that displays an inverted-U
shape is food, beverages, and tobacco 8 . Breaking
this down into three categories—grains and
starches, meat and animal products and other
foods—shows that this is principally due to a
decline in the consumption of grains and starches,
arguably the least environmentally destructive
food items (Fig. 4 and Table 1).
8 The author defines an inverted-U shape as requiring a
negative coefficient on squared GDP per capita with a t-statistic
greater than 2 in absolute value and a turning point that
falls within the range of the data.
Adriaanse et al. (1997) have estimated the total
material requirements, including hidden flows, for
the economies of the United States, The Netherlands,
Germany and Japan for the past two
decades. Their data show that, although there has
been a pattern of declining material intensity, in
terms of material requirements per unit of GDP,
per capita natural resource requirements have
continued to rise. An important caveat in using
these data, however, is that the materials required
to meet export demands are not currently deducted,
so the measure does not yet provide a
completely balanced picture of the requirements
needed to meet the consumption demands of a
particular country. de Bruyn and Opschoor (1997)
and Suri and Chapman (1998) are the only researchers
to date who have noted the importance
of taking a consumption-based approach to analyzing
the EKC hypothesis. In each case, the
researchers find very little evidence to support a