Urbanization and Environmental Development: A Panel Dynamic Threshold Model Analysis on BRICS-T Countries

Abstract

The neoclassical view, which has been re-marketed to the world economy with the motto "there is no other alternative" especially since the 1980s, has changed the socio-economic structure of many countries, causing the acceleration of the urban population, the deterioration of the quality of the economic growth process, and thus environmental destruction. In this context, the main purpose of the study is to investigate the effects of the urbanization process on carbon emissions by using the panel dynamic threshold model for the BRICS-T countries for the period 1990-2014. The analysis findings showing the existence of long-term relationships between the variables reflect that there are unidirectional causality relationships from urbanization and energy consumption to carbon emissions, and bidirectional causality relationships between economic growth and carbon emissions. The dynamic panel threshold model, which highlights the model predictions, reveals that the increase in the urban population increases carbon emissions until the urbanization threshold value is reached in both the short- and long-term, and after the threshold value is exceeded, the urban population growth accelerates the carbon emission much more. In this context, the results of the analysis show that the long-term effects are more dominant than the short-term effects. Therefore, the findings suggest that the level of urbanization causes environmental destruction.