IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reveco/v88y2023icp1464-1474.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Revisiting environmental Kuznets curve: The effects of foreign aid on air quality in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Xu, Zhicheng
  • Zhang, Yu

Abstract

The Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis suggests that an inverted U relationship exists between economic development and environmental pollution. However, this study shows that Chinese aid, particularly in the form of economic infrastructure in Africa, improved the local air quality and economic development simultaneously, even though Africa is still at the early stage of urbanization and industrialization. A battery of robustness checks, including instrumental variable estimation and permutation test with randomly assigned aid projects, further supports our findings. Therefore, aids in advanced economic infrastructure that improve resource consumption efficiency can mitigate the dilemma between growth and environment for emerging economies. (JEL: F35, O18, O55, Q53).

Suggested Citation

  • Xu, Zhicheng & Zhang, Yu, 2023. "Revisiting environmental Kuznets curve: The effects of foreign aid on air quality in Africa," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1464-1474.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:88:y:2023:i:c:p:1464-1474
    DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2023.07.081
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059056023002927
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.iref.2023.07.081?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baek, Jungho, 2015. "Environmental Kuznets curve for CO2 emissions: The case of Arctic countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 13-17.
    2. Hettige, Hemamala & Mani, Muthukumara & Wheeler, David, 2000. "Industrial pollution in economic development: the environmental Kuznets curve revisited," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 445-476, August.
    3. Banerjee, Abhijit & Duflo, Esther & Qian, Nancy, 2020. "On the road: Access to transportation infrastructure and economic growth in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    4. Yu, Eden S. H. & Hwang, Been-Kwei, 1984. "The relationship between energy and GNP : Further results," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 186-190, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Haouas, Ilham & Hoang, Thi Hong Van, 2019. "Economic growth and environmental degradation in Vietnam: Is the environmental Kuznets curve a complete picture?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 197-218.
    2. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Inekwe, John & Ivanovski, Kris & Smyth, Russell, 2020. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve across Australian states and territories," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    3. LAWSON, Laté A. & MARTINO, Roberto & NGUYEN-VAN, Phu, 2020. "Environmental convergence and environmental Kuznets curve: A unified empirical framework," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 437(C).
    4. Jianhui Jian & Xiaojie Fan & Pinglin He & Hao Xiong & Huayu Shen, 2019. "The Effects of Energy Consumption, Economic Growth and Financial Development on CO 2 Emissions in China: A VECM Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-16, September.
    5. Ismael Pérez-Franco & Agustín García-García & Juan J. Maldonado-Briegas, 2020. "Energy Transition Towards a Greener and More Competitive Economy: The Iberian Case," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-14, April.
    6. Jose Asturias & Manuel García-Santana & Roberto Ramos, 2019. "Competition and the Welfare Gains from Transportation Infrastructure: Evidence from the Golden Quadrilateral of India," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(6), pages 1881-1940.
    7. Zamani, Mehrzad, 2007. "Energy consumption and economic activities in Iran," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1135-1140, November.
    8. Tianjiao Zhao & Xiang Xiao & Qinghui Dai, 2021. "Transportation Infrastructure Construction and High-Quality Development of Enterprises: Evidence from the Quasi-Natural Experiment of High-Speed Railway Opening in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-23, December.
    9. Boulanouar, Zakaria & Essid, Lobna & Omri, Anis, 2024. "Achieving carbon neutrality in emerging markets: The dual impact of energy transition investments on economic growth and carbon emissions," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(PC).
    10. Omri, Anis, 2014. "An international literature survey on energy-economic growth nexus: Evidence from country-specific studies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 951-959.
    11. Konstantin Buechel, Stephan Kyburz, 2016. "Fast Track to Growth? The Impact of Railway Access on Regional Economic Development in 19th Century Switzerland," Diskussionsschriften credresearchpaper12, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft - CRED.
    12. Peters, Jörg, 2016. "Infrastructure and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: A review," Ruhr Economic Papers 628, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    13. Tiwari, Aviral, 2010. "On the dynamics of energy consumption and employment in public and private sector," MPRA Paper 24076, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Magazzino, Cosimo & Mele, Marco & Schneider, Nicolas, 2021. "A D2C algorithm on the natural gas consumption and economic growth: Challenges faced by Germany and Japan," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    15. Zaheer Abbas, 2020. "Re-assessing the Contribution of Energy Consumption to GDP Per- Capita: Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(6), pages 404-410.
    16. Kanjilal, Kakali & Ghosh, Sajal, 2013. "Environmental Kuznet’s curve for India: Evidence from tests for cointegration with unknown structuralbreaks," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 509-515.
    17. Fan, Xiaomin & Xu, Yingzhi, 2023. "Does high-speed railway promote urban innovation? Evidence from China," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    18. Das, Abhiman & Ghani, Ejaz & Grover, Arti & Kerr, William & Nanda, Ramana, 2024. "JUE insight: Infrastructure and Finance: Evidence from India’s GQ highway network," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    19. Céline Nauges & Jon Strand, 2017. "Water Hauling and Girls’ School Attendance: Some New Evidence from Ghana," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 66(1), pages 65-88, January.
    20. Fang Yang & Qinfan Gan, 2024. "Effect of Energy Poverty Alleviation on High-Quality Economic Development: An Empirical Study Based on China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(20), pages 1-17, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Aid; Infrastructure; EKC dilemma; Economic development; Air pollution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:88:y:2023:i:c:p:1464-1474. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620165 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.