Urbanization, inequality, economic development and ecological footprint: Searching for turning points and regional homogeneity in Africa

The debates on how inequality, economic development and urbanization affects the environment has been intense, but lacks the African perspective. Hence, this study examined these relationships, as well as other pathways to environmental degradation in Africa and her regions, such as FDI. Also, it explored the relationships amongst urbanization, economic development and inequality. Using Pedroni's cointegration and Quantile regression over 1996e2014 period, findings show cointegration and regional heterogeneities on the environmental, urbanization, economic development and inequality transmissions. Particularly, in Africa, inequality engenders more environmental degradation across all quantiles. Moreover, Africa and her regions are characteristic of a homogenous N-shaped relationship between economic development and environmental degradation. Similarly, a homogenous pollution haven hypothesis is true for Africa. However, EKC between economic development and inequality holds for countries with low and median initial levels of income inequality, but do not hold for countries with the highest initial levels. Furthermore, the EKC hypothesis holds between urbanization and inequality and, between urbanization and environmental degradation. Thus, urbanization complemented with employment creation strictly reduces inequality. Consequently, amongst policy targets are to bridge the income gap, reduce environmental degradation via strict environmental laws on imports, and building more sustainable urbanization and economic development processes for African countries. (c) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study examined the impact of inequality, economic development, and urbanization on the environment in Africa, finding that inequality leads to more environmental degradation and a homogenous N-shaped relationship exists between economic development and environmental degradation in Africa and its regions. Additionally, the pollution haven hypothesis holds true for Africa.