The environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis of BCIM-EC member countries against the backdrop of The Belt and Road Construction is tested and studied by Wang Xiaowen's research group from School of Economics, Lanzhou University.

 2020-05-22

Recently, Wang Xiaowen's research group from School of Economics, Lanzhou University tested and studied the environmental kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis of BCIM-EC member countries (bangladesh-China-india-myanmar economic corridor) against the backdrop of The Belt and Road construction. The paper respectively using time series data and panel data found that real GDP per capita and energy consumption positively correlated with carbon dioxide increase. While the relation of the square of the per capita GDP with carbon dioxide increase was negative in the short term, showing that apart from the energy consumption, the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis under the framework of panel data was only a short-term phenomenon. At the same time, by the method of structure mutation model of Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL), the research group found that if ignoring the effects of structural mutation, environmental kuznets curve hypothesis exist in Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar in the long run. According to the result of Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality tests , there existed a one-way causation between real GDP per capita and carbon emissions, GDP square and carbon emissions, carbon emissions and opening-up in trade. The paper argued that in the context of the Belt and Road construction, BCIM-EC should not only focus on connectivity and large-scale infrastructure construction, but should adopt the perspective of long-term sustainability to cope with environmental degradation and ensure each other's continuous economic growth by building sustainable green infrastructure.

       The paper titled Evaluating the EKC Hypothesis for the BCIM-EC Member Countries under the Belt and Road Initiative was published on internationally renowned open access journal , which focusing on sustainable development and environmental science.

With Dr. Arifur Rahman as its first author and Professor Wang Xiaowen as its corresponding author, The paper was first completed by the School of Economics, Lanzhou University. The research group led by Prof. Wang Xiaowen was committed to the development of regional economy, industry economics. In recent years, the research group conducted studies mainly on the "The Silk Road Economic Belt" construction. The paper was supported by the National Social Science Fund Project "The Silk Road City Public Infrastructure Construction In The Construction Of The Economic Belt Of The PPP Mode" which currently yielded fruitful achievements with successively 17 papers published in core journals at home and abroad.

       Published by the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), Sustainability is an internationally renowned open access journal, which mainly focusing on the sustainable development of the human environment, culture, economy and society.