Siyaset, Ekonomi ve Yönetim Araştırmaları Dergisi

Öz

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis shows the long-term relationship between environmental damage and per capita income. In other words, as income an increase, environmental damage increases, and after this increase reaches its peak, any increase in income becomes a turning point and causes a decrease in environmental pollutants. Policymakers have also recently paid great attention to the relationship between environmental pollution and per capita income, and some studies have found an inverse-U relationship between environmental pollution and per capita income. According to the EKC hypothesis, economic growth will be the solution to future environmental problems. EKC has a direct impact on the environment. In the development phase of an economy, its structure changes, and pollution increases with changes in the economic structure. In this study, on the basis of the EKC hypothesis, the data covering the period 1960-2016 and the relationship between environmental pollution and economic growth for Turkey were examined. The data were obtained from the official database of the World Bank, and Kapetanios (2005) unit root test, which is one of the structural break unit root tests, and Maki (2012) cointegration test based on this test were applied. In line with the empirical findings obtained from the analysis of the study, it was concluded that after taking the difference of both variables, they became stationary, that is, I (1). Therefore, according to the cointegration result of Maki (2012) with the break, it is seen that there is a long-term cointegration relationship between the series. It was concluded that there is an inverse-N relationship in the estimation of the long-term coefficients.