This paper examines the causal relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation for 115 countries over the period 1990–2016. The empirical results show a long-run equilibrium relationship between the CO₂, CH₄ and PM_2.5 emissions and their macroeconomic determinants economic growth, energy consumption, trade openness, urbanization, and transportation. The author found mixed support of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, confirming the U-shaped EKC for all the income countries in CO₂ and an inverted U-shaped EKC both in CH₄ and PM_2.5 emissions for the low, lower-middle and high-income countries. In the subsequent Granger causality test, the author revealed that energy consumption and economic growth raise the level of CO₂, the most significant pollutant because of their positive causal effect. Moreover, the impulse response function forecasts an inverted U-shaped EKC mostly for selected pollutants in all countries. Results suggest that promoting energy efficiency and reducing the use of fossil fuels are effective measures for reversing environmental degradation in the country.

本文研究了1990-2016年间115个国家的经济增长与环境退化之间的因果关系。实证结果表明，CO ₂，CH ₄和PM _2.5排放与它们的宏观经济决定因素之间的长期均衡关系决定了经济增长，能源消耗，贸易开放性，城市化和运输。作者发现对环境库兹涅茨曲线（EKC）假设的混合支持，证实了所有收入国家的CO ₂呈U形EKC以及CH ₄和PM _2.5均呈倒U形EKC。低，中，低收入国家的排放量。在随后的格兰杰因果关系检验中，作者发现能源消耗和经济增长提高了CO ₂的水平，CO ₂是最主要的污染物，因为它们具有正因果关系。此外，脉冲响应函数预测，在所有国家/地区中，大部分污染物都是针对特定污染物的倒U型EKC。结果表明，提高能源效率和减少化石燃料的使用是扭转该​​国环境恶化的有效措施。