Is There an EKC Relevant to the Industrial Emission of Water Pollution for SEMC and EU Countries?

Abstract

The Environmental Kuznet’s curve hypothesis admits the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic growth, generally approximated by GDP per capita, and environmental degradation. Despite the abundance of empirical literature on the environmental Kuznets curve, so far no study has been dealt with the relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution to Southern Eastern Mediterranean Counties SEMC and the European Union areas. Hence, we have therefore tried to extract an EKC specific for these two regions by focusing on the water pollution as an indicator of environmental degradation. For this aim, we have applied the technique of cointegration panel data for both samples in question over the period ranging from 1980 to 2005. Throughout this work, we have detected the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve with an inverted U-shaped specific to each sample. These curves admit two different turning points reflecting the differences between their levels of development.