11 July 2014
Talk abstract:
GDP per capita and energy intensity of production are generally accepted key determinants of human pressures on ecological systems. The theoretical and empirical literature, however, is less clear on many other potential explanatory variables, which have more ambiguous and complex (causal) impacts on the environment. In this (working) paper we employ an Extreme Bounds Analysis (ABA) to test the robustness and impact of more than 50 potential demographic, social, technological, economic and political determinants on the Ecological Footprint (of consumption, per capita). We use a panel of 160 countries over the 1961-2009 period which allows us to test for the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) as well as control for fixed effects and development over time. A variable of special interest is the KOF index of globalization with its three dimensions, the economic, social and political. While not necessarily revealing complex causal chains, this econometric allows to test a multitude of variables from multiple domains and indicates where policy intervention may have the biggest and least ambiguous impacts.
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
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