Linking Industrialization and Environmental Quality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does the Environmental Policy Stringency Matter?

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between industrialization and environmental quality. Despite an abundant literature on the subject, existing studies have not yet investigated the role of environmental policy stringency in the transmission of the effects of industrialization on environmental quality. This study uses a panel of 24 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with data covering the period 2000–2020. The use of the system GMM methodology shows that industrialization – measured by – the value added of industry and the value added of manufacturing – significantly deteriorates the quality of the environment. However, the introduction of the environmental policy stringency variable as a transmission channel produces a detrimental effect of industrialization on CO₂ emissions up to thresholds of 37.33 and 37 respectively for the industrial sector and the manufacturing sector. For an environmental policy stringency above these thresholds, industrialization significantly reduces CO₂ emissions. Finally, we found the Environmental Kuznets Curve between economic growth and CO₂ emissions. Thus, a strengthening of environmental policy can help these countries to develop a virtuous relationship between industrialization and the quality of the environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Industrialization
• environmental quality
• environmental policy stringency
• CO₂ emissions
• SSA

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The concept of ‘zero growth’ proposed by the Club of Rome in the early 1970s proposed a halt in economic growth, considered largely responsible for major environmental imbalances. Based on complex calculations and forecasts, the analyzes of the Club of Rome actually reflect, in their assumptions and conclusions, the basic postulates of the classical model on the economy-environment relationship.