Economic Growth and Environmental Pollution: An Empirical Test for the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis in China

The Environmental Kuznets Curve(EKC) hypothesis postulates an inverted-U-shaped relationship between different pollutions and per capita income,i.e.,environmental pressure increases up to a certain level as income goes up;after that,it decreases.This paper uses panel data on China's 30 provinces during 1996—2002 to examine the EKC relationship between per capita income and six categories measured pollution indicators.We find that the results are highly sensitive to different pollution indicators,functional forms and econometric methods employed.Then we incorporate some dimensions of social changes such as population density,trade openness,environmental policies,technology progress,and industrial structure change,into our model to investigate the impact of various exogenous control variables on the EKC,which can be varied along the development process depending on the income level.