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Abstract
We adopt a new representation of the relationship between emissions and income using
long-run growth rates. Our approach allows us to test multiple hypotheses about the
drivers of per capita emissions in a single framework and avoid several of the
econometric issues that have plagued previous studies. We find that for carbon dioxide
emissions, scale, convergence, and resource endowment effects are statistically
significant. For sulfur emissions, the scale and convergence effects are significant, there
is a strong negative time effect, and non-English legal origin and higher population
density are associated with more rapidly declining emissions. The environmental Kuznets
effect is not statistically significant in our full sample for either carbon or sulfur.