This paper articulates the necessity of emphasizing the absolute level of environmental degradation in different countries as a guide to understanding the links between such degradation and economic development. We argue the case for developing a composite environmental degradation index (EDI)...

We extend the analysis of Jha and Murthy (2003) to relate consumption to environmental degradation (conceived of as a composite) within a cross-country framework. We use the method of Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to construct an Environmental Degradation Index (EDI) for each country and...