Leder ökad ekonomisk tillväxt till minskade koldioxidutsläpp? : En undersökning utifrån teorin om the Environmental Kuznets Curve

Sammanfattning: In the beginning of the industrialization in the mid-1850s, economic growth in Sweden increased. The fast growing production and increased population did no longer manage to cope with the energy available, which led to an increased demand for new and better energy sources. This led to high carbon dioxide emissions and environmental degradation. The purpose of this thesis is to study the relationship between economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions in Sweden between the years 1850-2016 and to test the application of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). The applied theory of EKC, is a hypothetical link between environmental quality and economic growth. Various indicators of environmental degradation seem to get worse when modern economic growth occurs, until average income reaches a certain level during the development. An Ordinary Least Squares-regression (OLS-regression) is used to analyze macroeconomic time series. Furthermore, a time series analysis has been used to study whether the time series are stationary. The results showed support for the EKC curve for Sweden with a clear positive rise in the form of positive β-values from the OLS-regression and a negative trend at high income levels.