Özet:

Policies that focus on economic growth increase the pressure on nature and cause environmental pollution. Therefore, environmental protection simultaneously with economic growth and employment has become an important development priority for countries today. In this context, the aim of the study is to test the Environmental Phillips Curve (EPC) hypothesis, which assumes a negative relationship between environmental pollution and unemployment, for MIKTA countries (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, and Australia) in the period of 1991–2018 by drawing on Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis approach of Narayan and Narayan (2010). To this end, ecological footprint (ECF) is used as an indicator of environmental pollution. Moreover, the long-term relationship is estimated with the Durbin–Hausman cointegration test and the long-term coefficients are estimated with the cross-section augmented ARDL (CS–ARDL) estimator. As a result of the analysis, it is determined that the EPC hypothesis is valid both in the short and long term in MIKTA countries, in other words, unemployment reduces environmental pollution. Based on this finding, MIKTA countries are recommended to encourage employment in sectors that cause less pollution, and to raise environmental standards in sectors that cause heavy pollution.

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