THE IMPACT OF GROWTH ON BIODIVERSITY: AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT

Several studies investigating environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) relationship for biodiversity, suffer from limitations and the empirical evidence is inconclusive. More specifically, with few exceptions, the previous EKC studies for biodiversity looked into the diversity of a particular species or a number of species rather than a broader measure of biodiversity. In addition, these studies do not control for some economic factors that could directly or indirectly affect the biodiversity stock such as trade and foreign direct investments. The innovative features of this paper are its attempts to estimate an ECK for biodiversity using an overall index of biodiversity and the inclusion in the traditional ECK equation of proxies for trade and FDI. We also tested the impact on biodiversity of the membership in agreements for biodiversity protection. According to our estimates the ECK is partially verified. Rising incomes are associated with increasing biodiversity then with decreasing biodiversity and eventually with increasing biodiversity again.