Reinvestigation of environmental Kuznets curve with ecological footprints: Empirical analysis of economic growth and population density

• Published date: 01 February 2022
• Author: Muzzammil Hussain,Muhammad Usman,Jawad Ahmad Khan,Zahid Hassan Tarar,Muhammad Arslan Sarwar
• Date: 01 February 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2276

ACADEMIC PAPER

Reinvestigation of environmental Kuznets curve with

ecological footprints: Empirical analysis of economic growth

and population density

Muzzammil Hussain

1,2

| Muhammad Usman

2

| Jawad Ahmad Khan

3

|

Zahid Hassan Tarar

4

| Muhammad Arslan Sarwar

2

1

Business School, University of International

Business and Economics, Beijing, China

2

Faculty of Management Sciences, University

of Gujrat, Gujrat, Pakistan

3

ORIC, University of Lahore, Pakistan

4

Soil and Water Testing Laboratory, Soil

Fertility Research Institute, Lahore, Punjab,

Pakistan

Correspondence

Muzzammil Hussain, University of

International Business and Economics, Beijing,

China.

Email: hussain_muzzamil@yahoo.com;

muzzammil.hussain@uog.edu.pk

A large population is not only the burden to a country's economy but can be a threat

to the environment. However, the role of the population density in the quality of the

environment is silent in the literature. On this note, the current study focuses on the

effect of population density on ecological footprints in Pakistan for the period from

1981 to 2016 in the framework of EKC theory. The result from the autoregressive

distributive lag model summarized that the effect of population density on ecological

footprint is negative and statistically significant, implying that population density

does not contribute to environmental degradation. No causality is evident in eco-

nomic development and ecological footprint. Unlike others, the findings of this study

suggest that if the population is suitably spread, it can help to reduce environmental

degradation. Moreover, policymakers need to reconsider the density of the popula-

tion to avoid an ecological deficit.

1|INTRODUCTION

Economic development has been an irrefutably essential goal around

the globe. In the pursuit of this goal, every country has been facing

some undesirable consequences. The most severe externality is envi-

ronmental degradation, which is not only faced by developed nations

but has more compelling effects on developing nations. This phenom-

enon got real importance with the emergence of the “environmental

Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis”(Grossman & Krueger, 1991, 1995;

Kahuthu, 2006; Selden & Song, 1994). Although, the EKC hypothesis

is logical and attractive its practical implications are criticized by the

many empirical studies (Chiu, 2012; He & Richard, 2010; Kearsley &

Riddel, 2010; Müller-Fürstenberger & Wagner, 2007; Ozturk &

Al-Mulali, 2015; Romero-

Avila, 2008; Selden & Song, 1994). They are

of the view that environmental degradation and can be reversed. They

also argued that every nation is overvaluing the environmental degra-

dation. Conversely, many studies argued that environmental degrada-

tion cannot be reversed (Arrow et al., 1995; Bimonte, 2002;

Czech, 2008; Fodha & Zaghdoud, 2010; Tisdell, 2001). Critics of the

EKC hypothesis also claim that EKC only considers pollutant emis-

sions as environmental degradation, which may vary from country to

country. The developed countries are handling the environmental

degradation in a better way due to better environmental laws, and

transferring dirty production industries to developing countries All the

countries cannot equally undertake protective measures and hence

developing countries suffer more (Gill, Viswanathan, & Hassan, 2018;

Hatfield-Dodds et al., 2015).

Environmental degradation has been measured by several indices

but the ecological footprint is considered a comprehensive measure

(Destek & Sarkodie, 2019a; Dogan, Ulucak, Kocak, & Isik, 2020;

Mrabet, AlSamara, & Hezam Jarallah, 2017). The ecological footprint

is a collection of human activities in terms of “cropland, grazing land,

forest land, fishing ground, built-up land, and carbon land”(Danish,

Hassan, Baloch, Mahmood, & Zhang, 2019; Rashid et al., 2018). Eco-

logical footprint focuses on the production as well as consumption

activities, which directly and indirectly worsen environmental quality.

Due to the higher pressure of these activities, the ecological footprint

is getting scarce. The scarcity of ecological resources as compared to

demand is resulting in environmental degradation (Khan &

Hussain, 2019). The ecological footprint emerges as an important con-

sideration in the West, but its consideration in developing countries

like Pakistan is least. In Pakistan, though alarming loudly, the menace

Received: 25 June 2020 Revised: 6 July 2020 Accepted: 9 July 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2276

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https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2276