Testing the moderating role of urbanization on the environmental Kuznets curve: empirical evidence from an emerging mark

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Testing the moderating role of urbanization on the environmental Kuznets curve: empirical evidence from an emerging market Dervis Kirikkaleli 1

&

Demet Beton Kalmaz 2

Received: 22 January 2020 / Accepted: 23 June 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract Over the last 50 years, urban population of Turkey has grown from 25 to 75%. Urbanization is highly linked with one of the most important global problems which is global warming through accelerating economic growth, energy consumption, and trade openness that are considered to be the main indicators of climate change in environmental literature. The main purpose of the present research is to examine the long-run effect of economic growth, energy consumption, trade openness, and urbanization on environmental degradation and causal link among the indicators under consideration in Turkey by taking into account the moderating role of urbanization over the period of 1960–2016. Aiming to establish robust findings, this study utilized both traditional and modern econometric techniques, including Bayer and Hanck cointegration, Gregory and Hansen cointegration, fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS), Granger causality, Toda-Yamamoto causality, and Gradual Shift causality tests. The cointegration tests reveal that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and economic growth, energy consumption, trade openness, urbanization, and the moderating role of urbanization are cointegrated. The outcomes of the long-run estimators—FMOLS and DOLS—reveals that environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is valid and the existence of moderating role of urbanization on indicators of CO2 emissions is confirmed for the case of Turkey. Moreover, the causality tests mirror that while energy consumption, trade openness, and urbanization are important for predicting CO2 emissions, the moderating role of urbanization leads CO2 emissions in the short run. Keywords CO2 emissions . Urbanization . Environmental Kuznets curve . Emerging market . Turkey

Introduction One of the most popular and discussed issues over the past few decades of academic literature and policy arena is global warming that is a sign for climate change. The popularity of the issue came into light due to the increased use of Responsible Editor: Eyup Dogan * Dervis Kirikkaleli [email protected] Demet Beton Kalmaz [email protected] 1

Faculty of Economic and Administrative Science, Department of Banking and Finance, European University of Lefke, Lefke, Northern Cyprus, TR-10, Mersin, Turkey

2

Faculty of Economic and Administrative Science, Department of Economics, European University of Lefke, Lefke, Northern Cyprus, TR-10, Mersin, Turkey

nonrenewable energy resources for production, arising with industrial revolution, generating greenhouse gases (GHG) which is the key contributor to global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere generating GHG effect. There have been several intergovernmental and global attempts such as