Analysis on Relationship between Economic Growth andEnergy Consumption on Road

• Main Authors: Yu-Tin Lin, 林鈺庭
• Other Authors: Heng-Chi Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/j8ht32

碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 運籌管理所 === 96 === Transportation plays an inevitable role in economic development. However, if we use Daly’s rules (Daly, 1992) for energy consumption and the emissions of pollutants, the transportation sector is the least sustainable one. Roads are the main sources of energy consumption induced pollutants in transportation sector; hence, roads play a crucial role in sustainable development. Consequently, countries begin to take necessary steps to ensure sustainable transportation. In terms of this phenomenon, transportation development seems to support to the argument raised by Grossman and Krueger (1995). They argue that the economic development not only promotes the environmental protection but also improves the quality of life. That is to say, although economic development will bring up more transportation demand, the pressure from environmental consciousness also raised by increasing income may cutback associated pollutions. Yet, there are little attentions paid to this issue. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the relationship between the economic development and road transportation. We will examine if the growth of economy will help to decrease the road energy consumption and consequently reduce the pressure to the environment. The empirical results show that for the economic development and the road energy consumption, Environmental Kuznets Curve phenomenon exists if we use global data. This implies that the concepts of sustainable development are promoted as the growth of economy, and therefore economic development helps to diminish the negative effects to the environment. Nevertheless, as all samples are divided into OECD and Non-OECD two groups, only Non-OECD estimation results reveal inverse U shape. As a result, it can infer that the global EKC phenomenon could be the consequence of domination by the developing-country results. In addition, although in the EKC literature, some studies show that trade can have positive effects on the environment by aiding the spread of knowledge and technology, but others argue race-to-the-bottom effects. Our results show that the net effect of trade is negative. Thus, for road transportation, trade will suppress the positive effects by the increased road transportation demand