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Abstract
The relationship between income and environmental quality is poorly understood at best. We
expand the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) literature by considering not only the role of
emissions but also the role of the environment’s absorptive capacity in the relationship between
income and environmental quality. Building off of a simple conceptual model, we construct
two different aggregate measures of environmental quality. Using these measures, we find that
emissions and emissions toxicity exhibit a relationship consistent with the EKC hypothesis, while
biodiversity and ecosystem services do not.