Testing the pollution haven hypothesis on the pathway of sustainable development: Accounting the role of nuclear energy consumption

Abstract

The environmental effects of China's nuclear energy consumption in a dynamic framework of the pollution haven hypothesis are examined. This study uses a dynamic autoregressive distributed lag simulation approach. Empirical evidence confirms that the pollution haven hypothesis does not exist for China; i.e., foreign direct investment plays a promising role in influencing environmental outcomes. Furthermore, empirical results concluded positive contribution of nuclear energy in pollution mitigation. From the results it is expected that encouraging foreign investment to increase generation of nuclear energy would benefit environmental quality by reducing CO2 emissions.

Keywords

• Nuclear energy
• Carbon emissions
• Pollution haven hypothesis
• Dynamic autoregressive distributed lag method
• China