Oil-Induced environmental Kuznets curve in organization of petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) |
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Authors: | Behnaz Saboori Usama Al-mulali Maizan Bin Baba Abdul Hakim Mohammed |
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Institution: | 1. Economics Program, Faculty of Law, Political Science and Economics, Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran;2. Faculty of Business, Multimedia University, Melaka, Malaysia;3. Centre of Real Estate Studies, Department of Real Estate, Faculty of Geoinformation &4. Real Estate, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru Johor, Malaysia |
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Abstract: | This study investigates the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in 10 of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). To realize the study’s aims a time series model is built based on the period 1977–2008, utilizing the ecological footprint as an environmental indicator and income, labour, capital, oil consumption and oil price as economic indicators. Employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach, by comparing the short and long-run income elasticities, the EKC hypothesis is present in six OPEC countries namely Algeria, Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria, Qatar and Kuwait. Moreover, the Toda–Yamamoto–Dolado–Lütkepohl (TYDL) causality tests outcome show that, after oil consumption, the most significant factors in increasing ecological footprint are labor and capital. This implies the relocation of pollution intensive industries to almost all of the OPEC countries. However, oil prices reduce environmental damage by its negative effect on the ecological footprint. From the outcome of this study it is important for the investigated countries to reduce their consumption of fossil fuel energy since it represents an important source of pollution. This can be achieved by allocating more labor and capital in projects and investments on renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy saving. |
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Keywords: | ARDL cointegration ecological footprint oil consumption OPEC countries TYDL causality tests |
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