Reformulating the tourism-extended environmental Kuznets curve: A quantile regression analysis under environmental legal conditions

Abstract

This work aims to empirically study the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in a model that takes into account the tourism sector. We use two novel approaches in this framework: an own developed environmental legal index and an instrumental quantile regression methodology. Our study comprises 18 Latin American countries between 1995 and 2013. We have found that tourism activity causes carbon emissions increases but, because of the restrictions imposed by environmental regulations, further tourism activity can mitigate these adverse environmental effects, mainly in high-polluted countries. These results suggest a step forward in the tourism-extended EKC estimations: they indicate the need for analysis considering the heterogeneities in environmental conditions across countries and the role of environmental regulation within this framework.

An asymmetric examination of the environmental effect of tourism in China

“…A reasonable number of research have also particularly examined how tourism impacts the environment. Examples include Gössling et al (2002), Peeters et al (2007), Howitt et al (2010), Lee and Brahmasrene (2013), Solarin (2014), Al-Mulali et al (2015), De Vita et al (2015), Keng et al (2020) and Porto and Ciaschi (2020). Gössling et al (2002) created a methodological framework for the estimation of tourism-related ecological footprints.…”

Evaluation of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in a tourism development context: evidence for 15 Latin American countries

“…First, empirical work focused on testing the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis proposed by Grossman and Krueger (1991), based on Kuznets (1955). This theory proposes that environmental degradation measured by CO 2 emissions is a function of economic growth, reaching a turning point where growth becomes sustainable and impacts negatively on environmental degradation (Anser et al, 2020; Arbulú et al, 2015; Fethi & Senyucel, 2020; Gao et al, 2021; Mikayilov et al, 2019; Ozturk et al, 2016; Porto & Ciaschi, 2020). Second, studies focused on analysing the link between tourism development and environmental degradation are presented (Alizadeh, 2020; Anser et al, 2020; de Vita et al, 2015; Pablo‐Romero et al, 2019; Zaman et al, 2016).…”

“…In summary, although a significant number of studies analyse the relationship between environmental degradation and tourism development, there is a limited number of studies that analyse this relationship for the economies that make up Latin America (Alizadeh, 2020; Porto & Ciaschi, 2020; Qureshi et al, 2017). Similarly, this can be seen in Table 1, which shows the results of the investigations mentioned in this section.…”

“…This implies that tourism development increases more than in the first option and environmental quality deteriorates less in the first option. And finally, it implies that it leads to an improvement in the quality of the environment (Pigram, 1980; Porto & Ciaschi, 2020).…”

“…In this context, the importance of analysing the relationship between environmental degradation and tourism development is observed. However, there are a limited number of studies that analyse this relationship for the economies that make up Latin America (Alizadeh, 2020; Porto & Ciaschi, 2020; Qureshi et al, 2017). Since tourism is related to transport, the measure of environmental impact suggested by several studies is CO 2 emissions (Fethi & Senyucel, 2020; Shakouri et al, 2017; Sherafatian‐Jahromi et al, 2017).…”