Industrial pollution in economic development: the environmental Kuznets curve revisited

Using new international data, this paper tests the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for industrial water pollution. We measure the effect of income growth on three determinants of pollution: the share of industry in national output, the share of polluting sectors in industrial output, and end-of-pipe (EOP) pollution intensities (per unit of output) in the polluting sectors. We find that the industry share of national output follows a Kuznets-type trajectory, but the other two determinants do not. When combined, our results imply rejection of the EKC hypothesis for industrial water pollution: it rises rapidly through middle-income status and remains roughly constant thereafter. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.