Analysis of the Relationship Between Agriculture, Economic Growth, and the Environment Through Keynesian Models - The Agricultural Economics of the 21st Century - page 104

location. For example, the trade liberalization seems to have had positive effects
upon the sustainability of rich countries but unfavorable for poor locations. The
interaction between economic growth, the environment, and international relations
was also studied by Gollain ( 2011 ). The preoccupation with economic growth and
the quality of the environment has existed for some decades now, but attention
towards the relationship between international trade and living standards are rela-
tively recent (Proops 2001 ; Ekins 2002 ).
Upon reviewing empirical literature, questions relating to economic growth and
pollution, environment regulation and economic growth, and trade liberalization
and environment were observed by Chua ( 1999 ), some years earlier. This author
concluded that empirical literature does not support evidence that the economic
growth causes more pollution; the environment regulations diminish economic
growth and that international trade liberalization promotes more environmental
problems. However, the author suggests that these conclusions may come from
the omission of some factors, such as innovation, the international movement of
technologies, and externalities from the quality of the environment.
Indeed the stage of development is important; Gao ( 2011 ), for example, ana-
lyzed the impacts of economic growth upon resources and the environment in a
large Chinese province, taking into account the environmental Kuznets curve and
time series data from 1994 to 2009, and the results still suggest some negative
effects of the economic growth on environmental sustainability.
China is an example where the economic growth was not followed by improve-
ments in the environment and living standards. China has politics, the environment,
and resources as potential obstacles. In China inequality and movement of the
abundant workforce to urban regions still occur (Elek 2009 ).
Energy consumption and pollution is a problem for economic growth and
development in China. In this way, Yanqing and Mingsheng ( 2012 ) with panel
data from 30 Chinese provinces, in the period 2001-2008, built a model to analyze
the interactions between energy consumption, the environment, and economic
growth. The conclusions reveal that in this period the economic performance in
China still had negative impacts upon energy consumption and on environmental
sustainability because of the high levels of pollution at different stages. In the
model built variables such as the income per capita, pollution, energy consumption,
average capital stock, average human capital, labor, and openness and population
density were considered.
The positive effects of economic growth on the environment are mainly because
of improvements in building standards and better choices on the demand side of
developed and developing countries that became more efficient in their energy
consumption (Krupa 2013 ).
From a political perspective, considering the environmental Kuznets curve,
Eriksson and Persson ( 2003 ) developed a model to analyze the influence of democ-
racy on the levels of pollution and found results which revealed that more demo-
cratic countries, in ceteris paribus conditions and with the same points of income,
pollute less. Before, Newman ( 1992 ) focused on aspects related to natural resources