Analyzing environmental impact assessment of income inequality, globalization, and growth in sub-Saharan African countries.

ABSTRACT

Despite the growing literature on the inequality-emissions nexus, this area of empirical interest is still inconclusive, particularly in the era of globalization. Hence, this empirical work investigates the effect of income inequality on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions controlling the model for globalization. Considering the unique characteristics of various proxies of inequality, different proxies have been employed to develop an in-depth understanding of the inequality-emission nexus. The Driscoll-Kraay and generalized least square regression approaches are used for 38 sub-Saharan African countries from 1990 to 2016. Empirical results infer that higher income inequality promotes carbon reduction in the sample countries of the study. Further, findings suggest that globalization is beneficial for the environment by contributing to carbon emission mitigation. Several additional variables are used to validate the findings. The study offers some important policy implications in the end.