Abstract:

he aim of this study is to determine the relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution by testing the data of 37 OECD countries with the Environmental Kuznets Curve (ÇKE) hypothesis. The relationship between energy consumption, per capita real gross domes-tic product (GDP), per capita real GDP squared, urbanization rate, trade liberalization and CO2 emissions in the period of 1990-2015 in OECD countries were analyzed with the EKC hypothesis. The EKC hypothesis accepts that there is an inverted-U-shaped relationship between per capita income and environmental damage. As a result of the analysis; The coefficient of energy consumption was found to be positive and statistically significant. While energy consumption has a positive effect on carbon emissions in general, the increase in trade liberalization has increased carbon emissions in some countries and decreased carbon emissions in others. While the increase in the rate of urbanization reduces carbon emissions in some countries, it has a positive effect in some countries. It has been observed that the openness index has a negative effect on carbon emissions in general. As a result of the study, the EKC hypothesis was found to be valid in 14 countries, and it was concluded that the EKC hypothesis was not valid in 23 countries.