Assessing the Role of Economic Growth in Achieving Environmental Sustainability: EKC in Developing Countries

Abstract

The persistent increase in environmental degradation has become a challenge for the researchers and policy makers in all the countries of the world. Several studies have scrutinized the impact of economic activities and the use of energy as an input on environmental degradation but the results of these studies were not clear due to several reasons. The present study tries to verify the EKC through economic activities and environmental degradation in 81 developing countries. For analysis purposes PQR and FGLS estimations techniques have been used on the annual panel data for the period 1990-2020. The results of this study show the existence of inverted U shaped EKC between economic activities and environmental degradation. Furthermore, all the selected countries lie on the positive side of the EKC. The study concludes that the government of these countries should take effective steps for the provision of more resources to enhance economic activities without compromising the environmental quality.