| Summary: | Previous literature on the Environmental Kuznets Curve has focused extensively on why or why not such a relationship is observed given specific scenarios. More recent literature has shifted attention towards factors that may explain differences in the distribution or threshold of the curve. The purpose of this paper is to determine why we witness different cutoff points for environmental improvement given the same dependent variable. For this analysis, the relationship between CO2 emissions and GDP growth is observed in the United States and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) from 1981-2006. The results suggest that the standard for environmental improvement is lower for the BRIC countries compared with the United States. Factors that explain this are FDI inflow, share of production from different industries, share of energy from different sources, and overall incentives.
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