An Econometric Analysis of the Environmental Kuznets Curve: The Case of Turkey

Understanding the relationship between the environmental quality and economic growth has increasingly attracted the attention of economists. The literature on this relationship focuses on testing the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between income and the CO2 emission by using time series analysis for Turkey. The validity of the EKC is investigated by the Johansen cointegration test using the data for the time period 1960-2011. The results of our time series analysis suggest a cointegrating relationship between income and the CO2 emission. The results also indicate an N-shaped relationship between these variables, which in turn imply that the EKC hypothesis is not supported by this data set