ANALYSIS A consumption-based approach to environmental Kuznets curves using the ecological footprint indicator Marco Bagliani a,d , Giangiacomo Bravo b , Silvana Dalmazzone c,d, ⁎ a IRES (Istituto di Ricerche Economico Sociali) Piemonte, Via Nizza 18, 10125, Torino, Italy b Dipartimento di Studi Sociali, Università di Brescia, Via San Faustino, 74B, 25122 Brescia, Italy c Dipartimento di Economia “S. Cognetti de Martiis”, Università di Torino, Via Po, 53, 10124 Torino, Italy d IRIS – Interdisciplinary Research Institute on Sustainability, Università di Torino and Università di Brescia, Italy ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received 27 February 2006 Received in revised form 14 January 2008 Accepted 14 January 2008 Available online 4 March 2008 Recent research suggests that consumption-based measures offer an insightful perspective on the debate on the relationship between economic growth and the environment. In this article we deepen the consumption-based line of inquiry by investigating the empirical evidence in support of the environmental Kuznets hypothesis using 2001 ecological footprint data for 141 countries. We perform Ordinary Least Squares and Weighted Least Squares analysis on linear, quadratic and cubic functions, in standard and logarithmic specifications, as candidate models to represent the relationship between per capita income and environmental pressure. We replicate the cross country analysis also by estimating the regression function directly, through a nonparametric regression. In our analyses, with and without weighing data by population, the results do not show evidence of de-linking. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Environmental Kuznets curve Ecological footprint Biocapacity Consumption Environmental cost-shifting Economic development Trade JEL classification: Q00; Q01; Q20; Q50; Q56; O13; R14 1. Introduction The relationship between economic growth and environmen- tal impact has been an object of debate in environmental economics for over a decade. Several authors argue that whereas in most countries, at low income levels, an increase in national income corresponds to increased environmental pressure, in later stages of development a stronger demand for greener goods and environmental regulation, improved technology and more abundant resources available for in- vestment generally lead to a de-linking between economic growth and environmental degradation. The inversion in trend would give rise to an inverted-U relationship between indicators of environmental degradation and income per capita similar to that found by Kuznets (1955) in his work on inequality at different stages of development and hence ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS 65 (2008) 650 — 661 ⁎ Corresponding author. Dipartimento di Economia, Università di Torino, Via Po, 53, 10124 Torino, Italy. Tel.: +39 011 6704410; fax: +39 011 6703895. E-mail address: silvana.dalmazzone@unito.it (S. Dalmazzone). 0921-8009/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.01.010 available at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon