Determinants of CO2 emissions in open economies: testing the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis (1970-2000)

We address the problem of estimating an environmental Kuznets curve for CO2 in open economies. The novelty is that we follow a time series approach. The objective is, �first to answer a critique concerning the liability of Kuznets curves estimations when using cross-section data. For most of the countries analyzed here there is no evidence of a Kuznet curve,though when using cross-section data there is a Kuznet curve. Second, when using cross-section data it allows to test for other hypothesis concerning the functioning of the economy and pollution emissions. In particular we test hypothesis concerning the structure of the economy, the degree of openness of the economy, the in�uence of short-term fl�uctuations of economic growth and climate effects (when data is available). Moreover we test for the existence of a linear, a quadratic and a cubic relation between GNP and CO2 emissions. Most evidence is in favour of a cubic relation for each country. For some countries the time series are not cointegrated, hence the model could not be estimated with econometric security.