Journal: Uniport Journal Of Business, Accounting & Finance Management
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Abstract
In this study, we applied the recently proposed income elasticity approach to investigate the presence of an inverted U relationship also known as the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in 20 African countries and further grouped the countries into three panels not according to any know regions, but according to income such as Low-income African economies, lower- Middle African economies and upper-Middle income African economies. The presence of an inverted U relationship was investigated for both individual-specific countries and for the 3 panels using short-run and long-run income elasticity approach. The study concludes there is presence of an inverted-U relationship when long-run Income elasticity is smaller than short-run income elasticity. This evidence means that as income increase over time, carbon emissions have increased and reduced. In other words, as these individual African countries experience economic growth over time, their carbon emissions level has increase but will decline after a certain level of income is reached. This empirical finding is true only for Benin, Malawi, cote d’ ivour, south Africa, Botswana, and Libya, representing approximately 30% of the sample. With regards to the panel groups, we found evidence supporting the presence of an inverted U relationship only in the panel of low-income African countries with long-run income elasticity smaller than the short-run income elasticity, thus, the low-income African countries have reduced their carbon emissions level as economic growth is attained.