The Influence of Income Inequality on Air Environmental Quality: An Analysis of the Inland Region in China

作者：Tao Liu, Grichawat Lowatcharin, Peerasit Kamnuansilpa, L. Liu · 发表于：International Area Studies Review · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.69473/iasr.2024.27.3.267 · 研究领域：Energy, Environment, Economic Growth

The purpose of this study is to test empirically the hypothesis that an inverted Ushaped relationship exists between environmental degradation and economic development, and to derive its policy implications for employment, technology transfer and development assistance.Our findings, using cross-section data on deforestation and air pollution from a sample of developing and developed countries, tend to support the hypothesis of an inverted U-shaped relationship which we term an environmental Kuznets curve (EK-curve) because it is analogous to the inverted U-shaped relationship between inequality and development, advanced several decades ago by Simon Kuznets.Our findings indicate that the turning point for deforestation occurs between $800 -$1,200 per capita and the turning point for emissions between $3,800 -$5,500.Environmental degradation overall (combined resource depletion and pollution) is worse at levels of income per capita under $1,000.Between $1,000 and $3,000, both the economy and environmental degradation undergo dramatic structural change from rural to urban, from agricultural to industrial.A second structural transformation begins to take place as countries surpass a per capita income of $10,000 and begin to shift from energyintensive heavy industry into services and information/technology-intensive industry.The non-rejection of the EK-curve hypothesis implies a certain inevitability of environmental degradation along a country's development path at an earlier sta...