The Environmental Kuznets Curve for Changing Land Use : Empirical Evidence from Major States of India

The inverted U-shaped relationship between the per capita income and the environmental quality known as Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) has been analysed and debated by a large number of economists in the 1990's. Various environmental quality in terms of Nox, Sox etc. have been demonstrated to be associated with the per capita income of specific region and country with the help of empirical analysis. Some attempts have also been made to test the EKC path for land use pattern. The paper attempts to analyze the change in land use pattern for 19 major states of India for 1963-64 to 1995-96. By specifying a suitable model, cropped area, removal of forest cover (deforestation) and pasture area have separately been regressed on per capita income (PCI), yield and population density. Besides OLS, the models for the analysis included, Kmenta Model, fixed effect model and random effect model. Stationarity and Cointegration have also been tested for the variables. Results from the analysis indicate the presence of EKC for crop area at around the income level between Rs.1347 and Rs.1440 and for pasture area between the income level of Rs.881 and Rs.871. The turning point is found to be around Rs.811 for total forest area. The state level analysis confirms the turning point for crop area for the states of Punjab and Haryana and for total forest area for the states of Punjab and Maharastra