An Inverse Global Environmental Kuznets Curve

This paper emphasizes the role played by the level of global environmental degradation (GED) in economic development; this link has been ignored in the existing literature on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). We develop a composite environmental degradation index (EDI) using Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and relate it to an appropriate measure of economic development, i.e., the human development index (HDI), with a view toward developing a global EKC (GEKC) for 174 countries. Several important conclusions relating to the global behavior of environmental degradation, the precise shape of the GEKC, and the pattern of distribution of GED are derived.