THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ECONOMIC GROWTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION IN TURKEY

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution in Turkey. The research uses annual time series data from 1970 to 2017. Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) and Phillips-Perron (PP) unit root tests were used to test the stationarity of the series. In this the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model is used as an estimation technique. Furthermore, the classical additive decomposition method was used to forecast the pollution. The results indicate that economic growth has a positive significant effect on environmental pollution in the short-run and positive but insignificant effect in the long-run. When the long-run and short-run elasticities were compared it is found that the long-run elasticity is greater than the short-run elasticity which challenges the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis and provides evidence against its existence in Turkey. The paper suggests that robust and effective environmental policies should be strictly implemented and closely monitored to reduce the environmental pollution and to ensure the preservation of resources for future generations.