[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cegedp/413.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The dependence between income inequality and carbon emissions: A distributional copula analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Dorn, Franziska
  • Maxand, Simone
  • Kneib, Thomas
Abstract
High levels of carbon emissions and rising income inequality are interconnected challenges for the global society. Commonly-applied linear regression models fail to unravel the complexity of potential bi-directional transmission channels. Specifically, consumption, energy sources and the political system are potential determinants of the strength and direction of the dependence between emissions and inequality. To capture their impact, this study investigates the conditional dependence between income inequality and emissions by applying distributional copula models on an unbalanced panel data set of 154 countries from 1960 to 2019. A comparison of high-, middle-, and low-income countries contradicts a linear relationship and sheds light on heterogeneous dependence structures implying synergies, trade-offs and decoupling between income inequality and carbon emissions. Based on the conditional distribution, we can identify determinants associated with higher/lower probabilities of a country falling in an area of potential social and environmental sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Dorn, Franziska & Maxand, Simone & Kneib, Thomas, 2021. "The dependence between income inequality and carbon emissions: A distributional copula analysis," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 413, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cegedp:413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/232062/1/1752034538.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nadja Klein & Thomas Kneib & Giampiero Marra & Rosalba Radice & Slawa Rokicki & Mark E. McGovern, 2018. "Mixed Binary-Continuous Copula Regression Models with Application to Adverse Birth Outcomes," CHaRMS Working Papers 18-06, Centre for HeAlth Research at the Management School (CHaRMS).
    2. Frederick Solt, 2020. "Measuring Income Inequality Across Countries and Over Time: The Standardized World Income Inequality Database," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(3), pages 1183-1199, May.
    3. Jason Hickel & Giorgos Kallis, 2020. "Is Green Growth Possible?," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 469-486, June.
    4. Iwata, Hiroki & Okada, Keisuke & Samreth, Sovannroeun, 2010. "Empirical study on the environmental Kuznets curve for CO2 in France: The role of nuclear energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 4057-4063, August.
    5. Yannick Oswald & Anne Owen & Julia K. Steinberger, 2020. "Publisher Correction: Large inequality in international and intranational energy footprints between income groups and across consumption categories," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 5(4), pages 349-349, April.
    6. Jorgenson, Andrew & Schor, Juliet & Huang, Xiaorui, 2017. "Income Inequality and Carbon Emissions in the United States: A State-level Analysis, 1997–2012," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 40-48.
    7. Nicole Grunewald & Stephan Klasen & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Chris Muris, 2011. "Income inequality and carbon emissions," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 92, Courant Research Centre PEG.
    8. Boyce, James K., 1994. "Inequality as a cause of environmental degradation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 169-178, December.
    9. Grunewald, Nicole & Klasen, Stephan & Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada & Muris, Chris, 2017. "The Trade-off Between Income Inequality and Carbon Dioxide Emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 249-256.
    10. Yannick Oswald & Anne Owen & Julia K. Steinberger, 2020. "Large inequality in international and intranational energy footprints between income groups and across consumption categories," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 5(3), pages 231-239, March.
    11. Stephan Klasen, 2018. "Inequality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 26(3), pages 1-14, October.
    12. Roca, Jordi, 2003. "Do individual preferences explain the Environmental Kuznets curve?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 3-10, April.
    13. James Boyce, 1994. "Inequality as a Cause of Environmental Degradation," Published Studies ps1, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    14. Torras, Mariano & Boyce, James K., 1998. "Income, inequality, and pollution: a reassessment of the environmental Kuznets Curve," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 147-160, May.
    15. Daniel W. O’Neill & Andrew L. Fanning & William F. Lamb & Julia K. Steinberger, 2018. "A good life for all within planetary boundaries," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 1(2), pages 88-95, February.
    16. Marra, Giampiero & Radice, Rosalba, 2017. "Bivariate copula additive models for location, scale and shape," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 99-113.
    17. Ravallion, Martin & Heil, Mark & Jalan, Jyotsna, 2000. "Carbon Emissions and Income Inequality," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 651-669, October.
    18. Frederick Solt, 2016. "The Standardized World Income Inequality Database," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1267-1281, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kemal Erkisi, 2024. "Income inequality and CO2 emissions nexus: A long-run analysis for Turkey," ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2024(1), pages 171-191.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dorn, Franziska & Maxand, Simone & Kneib, Thomas, 2024. "The nonlinear dependence of income inequality and carbon emissions: Potentials for a sustainable future," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    2. Ibrahim Mohamed Ali Ali, 2023. "Income Inequality and Environmental Degradation in Middle-Income Countries: A Test of Two Competing Hypotheses," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 166(2), pages 299-321, April.
    3. Salih Ozturk & Murat Cetin & Harun Demir, 2022. "Income inequality and CO2 emissions: nonlinear evidence from Turkey," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(10), pages 11911-11928, October.
    4. Nicolli, Francesco & Gilli, Marianna & Vona, Francesco, 2022. "Inequality and Climate Change: Two Problems, One Solution?," FEEM Working Papers 329340, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    5. Fateh Belaïd, Sabri Boubaker, Rajwane Kafrouni, 2020. "Carbon emissions, income inequality and environmental degradation: the case of Mediterranean countries," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 17(1), pages 73-102, June.
    6. Kopp, Thomas & Nabernegg, Markus, 2022. "Inequality and Environmental Impact – Can the Two Be Reduced Jointly?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    7. Moritz A. Drupp & Ulrike Kornek & Jasper N. Meya & Lutz Sager, 2021. "Inequality and the Environment: The Economics of a Two-Headed Hydra," CESifo Working Paper Series 9447, CESifo.
    8. Simplice A. Asongu & Nicholas M. Odhiambo, 2020. "Inequality and Renewable Energy Consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implication for High Income Countries," Working Papers 20/094, European Xtramile Centre of African Studies (EXCAS).
    9. Henninger, Ella & Smith, E. Keith, 2024. "Beyond the haze: Decomposing the effect of economic inequality on global air quality from 2000 to 2020," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    10. Rojas-Vallejos, Jorge & Lastuka, Amy, 2020. "The income inequality and carbon emissions trade-off revisited," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    11. Uddin, Md. Main & Mishra, Vinod & Smyth, Russell, 2020. "Income inequality and CO2 emissions in the G7, 1870–2014: Evidence from non-parametric modelling," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    12. Federica Cappelli, 2024. "Unequal contributions to CO2 emissions along the income distribution within and between countries," Working Papers 2024.06, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    13. Recep Ulucak & Danish & Yaoqi Zhang & Rui Chen & Yiting Qiu, 2024. "Income Inequality, Economic Complexity, and Renewable Energy Impacts in Controlling Consumption-Based Carbon Emissions," Evaluation Review, , vol. 48(1), pages 119-142, February.
    14. Cappelli, Federica, 2024. "Unequal contributions to CO2 emissions along the income distribution within and between countries," FEEM Working Papers 341641, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    15. Wan, Guanghua & Wang, Chen & Wang, Jinxian & Zhang, Xun, 2022. "The income inequality-CO2 emissions nexus: Transmission mechanisms," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    16. Yongming Wang & Irfan Uddin & Yingmei Gong, 2021. "Nexus between Natural Resources and Environmental Degradation: Analysing the Role of Income Inequality and Renewable Energy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-20, July.
    17. Bo Yang & Minhaj Ali & Shujahat Haider Hashmi & Mohsin Shabir, 2020. "Income Inequality and CO 2 Emissions in Developing Countries: The Moderating Role of Financial Instability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-24, August.
    18. Abebe Hailemariam & Ratbek Dzhumashev & Muhammad Shahbaz, 2020. "Carbon emissions, income inequality and economic development," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 1139-1159, September.
    19. Langnel, Zechariah & Amegavi, George Babington & Donkor, Prince & Mensah, James Kwame, 2021. "Income inequality, human capital, natural resource abundance, and ecological footprint in ECOWAS member countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    20. Lesly Cassin & Paolo Melindi-Ghidi & Fabien Prieur, 2021. "The impact of income inequality on public environmental expenditure with green consumerism," Working Papers 2021.08, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bivariate distributional copula model; income inequality; carbon emission; social sustainability; ecological sustainability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • C46 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Specific Distributions
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:cegedp:413. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdgoede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.