CO2 emissions and economic performance in EU agriculture: Some evidence from Mediterranean countries

The present manuscript surveys the validity of economic performance per capita - Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions equivalent relationship covering the sector of agriculture for three Mediterranean countries, (France, Portugal and Spain). The value added generated by agriculture as index for economic performance, along with an index of environmental degradation (carbon emissions equivalent/1000 ha of utilized agricultural area) are the data on which the methodology of Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing is employed. According to our findings the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis is validated in the case of all sample countries, while conflict results are taken for the short run. The conflict results derived may well be attributed to different socio - economic conditions confronted by domestic farmers including the greenhouse gas emissions mitigation cost. Therefore, the policy measures already implemented in the sample countries may lead to limitation of carbon emissions generated by agriculture but still a lot have to be done in order the objectives set by Kyoto protocol to be fulfilled.