A panel estimation of the relationship between income, electric power consumption and CO2 emissions

This paper aims to give a contribution on the still questioned bell-shaped relationship between carbon dioxide polluting emissions and economic growth, which is commonly known in the literature as the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis. In particular, it develops a panel analysis for a group of 77 countries, including 22 OECD and 55 NON-OECD units, over the period 1971-2006. We specify the estimated model by taking into account the role of electric power consumption and compare the performance of alternative panel estimators for a quadratic and cubic specification of the empirical model. Our findings seem to go in favor of the EKC relationship for the entire sample. However, this outcome is not confirmed when moving the analysis at sub-sample level where results highlight a non homogeneous picture across different groups of nations.