Analysis of the relationship between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions in Latin America

Abstract

The present work seeks to verify the veracity of the Kuznets' environmental hypothesis for total economic growth and applied to the agricultural sector of the countries of Latin America. For this purpose, data from 1990 to 2015 were used. A methodology to incorporate the effects of cointegration and non-stationarity was used. The results showed that pollutant emissions and economic growth form an 'N’-shaped relationship. It was also found that Latin American countries have incentives to increase their pollutant emissions in view of growth. It was also concluded that in the long run economic growth requires higher levels of environmental degradation than in the initial stages.