Evaluating the EKC Hypothesis for the BCIM-EC Member Countries under the Belt and Road Initiative

This paper attempts to examine the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for the BCIM-EC (Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic corridor) member countries under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China. Both time series and panel data are covered, with respect to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, GDP per capita, energy use, and trade openness. For panel data analysis, GDP per capita and energy consumption have positive effects on CO2, while the effect of the quadratic term of GDP per capita is negative in the short-run. However, the short-run effects do not remain valid in the long-run, except for energy use. Therefore, the EKC hypothesis is only a short-run phenomenon in the case of the panel data framework. However, based on the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach with and without structural breaks, the EKC hypothesis exists in India and China, while the EKC hypothesis holds in Bangladesh and Myanmar with regard to disregarding breaks within the short-run. The long-run estimates support the EKC hypothesis of considering and disregarding structural breaks for Bangladesh, China, and India. The findings of the Dumitrescu and Hurlin panel noncausality tests show that there is a unidirectional causality that runs from GDP per capita to carbon emission, squared GDP to carbon emission, and carbon emission to trade openness. Therefore, the BCIM-EC under the BRI should not only focus on connectivity and massive infrastructural development for securing consecutive economic growth among themselves, but also undertake a long-range policy to cope with environmental degradation and to ensure sustainable green infrastructure.