This study examines the dynamic relationship among carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, economic growth and energy consumption based on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for Iran during the period 1971–2007. Auto regressive distributed lag (ARDL) methodology is employed as the estimation method. The results obtained suggest the existence of three forms of long-run relationship among variables when CO2 emissions, economic growth and energy consumption are the dependent variables. The results do not support the EKC hypothesis which assumes an inverted V-shaped relationship between income and environmental degradation. The long-run results indicate energy consumption has a positive and significant impact on CO2 emissions. The stability of the variables in estimated model is also examined. The result suggests that the estimated model is stable over the sample period.
Environmental Kuznets curve, CO2 emissions, energy consumption, cointegration approach, Iran
