What is it about?
This article examines the linkage between per capita GDP and sulfur dioxide emissions for one single country, in this case Finland. The narrow approach together with a combination of a historical and economical approach enables us cut deeper into the controversial environmental Kuznets curve -hypothesis. We found two parallel reasons for a downturn in sulfur emissions: technological development and anxiety about possible environmental damage and related economic costs. The role of economic growth creating a downturn was noticed being small or nonexistent. As a result, we claim that the causal connection goes to an opposite direction: proper environmental standards and conservation comprise a necessary condition for economic growth in the long run.
Featured Image
Photo by Sam Jotham Sutharson on Unsplash
Why is it important?
We show that proper environmental standards and conservation comprise a necessary condition for economic growth in the long run.
Perspectives
From a methodological point of view, I think this is my best article, because, here I show how we can use historical methods to answer economic questions and vice versa. In this case, the controversial environmental Kuznets curve-hypothesis, which claims that which proposes that some pollution or measures of environmental degradation would follow an inverted U-curve related to incomes, increasing at low income levels and decreasing at high income levels. We claim that the causal connection might also go in an opposite direction: proper environmental standards and conservation comprise a necessary condition for economic growth in the long run.
Dr Jan Kunnas
European University Institute
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Anxiety and technological change — Explaining the inverted U-curve of sulphur dioxide emissions in late 20th century Finland, Ecological Economics, May 2010, Elsevier, DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2010.03.005.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
