Trade Liberalization, Economic Growth, Energy Consumption and the Environment: Time Series Evidence from G-20 Economies

This study examines the dynamic interrelationships between trade, income growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions for G-20 economies in a framework of cointegrated vector autoregression (CVAR). Johansen's maximum likelihood procedure is used to estimate the coefficients of the cointegrated VAR. The results show that trade and income growth have a favorable effect on environmental quality for the developed G-20 member countries, while they have an adverse effect on the environment for the developing member countries. We also find that energy consumption tends to worsen environmental quality for both the developed and developing countries. Finally, it is found that trade and income to emission and energy causality holds for the developed countries; changes in degree of trade openness and income growth lead to corresponding changes in the rates of growth in emission and energy consumption. Emission and energy to trade and income causality, on the other hand, is found to hold for the developing countries; any shocks in emission and energy consumption cause corresponding fluctuations in income growth and trade openness.