Democracy and environmental quality

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Farzin, Y. Hossein; Bond, Craig A.
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Davis
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2005.04.003
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 213-235
• 关键词: Political institutions; societal preferences; Economic development; environmental quality

摘要

We develop and estimate an econometric model of the relationship between several local and global air pollutants and economic development while allowing for critical aspects of the sociopolitical-economic regime of a State. We obtain empirical support for our hypothesis that democracy and its associated freedoms provide the conduit through which agents can exercise their preferences for environmental quality more effectively than under an autocratic regime, thus leading to decreased concentrations or emissions of pollution. However, additional factors such as income inequality, age distribution, education, and urbanization may mitigate or exacerbate the net effect of the type of political regime on pollution, depending on the underlying societal preferences and the weights assigned to those preferences by the State. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier B.V.