Check it out at: http://envecon.wordpress.com/ (News, policy and research on the economics of the environment and natural resources). It's been around since January but I only recently happened across it. Below the fold is a recent post.
The best part is that the Environmental Economics blog is blog-rolled as "US Environmental Economics." Hereafter, we're changing our name to "The Best Damn Environmental Economics Blog, Period" with apologies to Fox Sports). And blog-rolling Natural Capital as LSE Natural Capital.
Just a joke, bloke!
The robustness of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC)
The EKC has been subject of continuous and intense scrutiny within environmental economics over the last ten years. The EKC states that an increase in economic growth does not necessarily mean deterioration of environmental quality, so a de-coupling is possible, at least after certain levels of income. The results however can vary depending upon what pollutants and what econometric specifications a researcher uses.
Many researchers use panel data methods to analyse the EKC, but increasing attention has focused on using time-series methods, such as Galeotti et al (2006). By using the emission from CO2 from 1960 to 2000, they find that the existence of a meaningful EKC crucially depends on the particular panel cointegration test chosen and the specification of the deterministic components in the test regression. This paper suggests that the EKC is fragile and not that robust.
Further checks on the EKC is an important area of research since panel integration tests rely on implausible assumptions on the behaviour of the error terms (e.g. independent and identically distributed) and on the data generating process (e.g. absence of structural breaks). Furthermore, many panel integration and cointegration testing procedures impose the unrealistic assumption of cross-sectional independence. Therefore, there is much scope for further research on the EKC using cointegration techniques.
I left three comments. Number one:
I'm not way into the EKC literature, but it seems to me that the early studies were cross-section (a bunch of countries in a single time period) or time-series (a single country over time) and the newer, and more illuminating studies are cross-section, time-series (i.e., a panel study -- a bunch of countries over time).
Number two:
I’m not way into the EKC literature, but it seems to me that the early studies were cross-section or time-series and the newer, and more illuminating studies are cross-section, time-series. At least that is how these sorts of things usually progress.
Number three:
Sorry for the 2nd and 3rd comment! I stripped the parentheticals knowing that you knew what those labels meant (I’m writing as I’m thinking and also not thinking).
What a dork I may be.
