Testing the role of external debt in environmental degradation: empirical evidence from Turkey

Abstract

This study investigates the role of external debt stock in Turkey, which has suffered from heavy (external and domestic) debt stock for many years. Annual data from 1960 to 2013 was analyzed using time series analysis in order to study this. The results confirm the validity of the conventional environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in the case of Turkey. However, this study also found that Turkey's external debt stock did not influence the Turkish economy's long-term EKC behavior. Fortunately, the results suggest that there are important interactions among external debt stock, CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and real income; that is, changes in external debt volume precede changes in these aggregates' volumes.