Beyond the EKC: Economic development and environmental degradation in the US

The paper explores the impact of economic development on environmental degradation in the United States of America (US) using a Wavelet Quantile Correlation (WQC) methodology proposed by Kumar and Padakandla (2022) . The span covers the period 1992M1-2022M12. The analysis does not confirm the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in the US, offering short-term and long-term perspectives of the ‘economic development - environmental degradation’ nexus as a novelty. The core findings show a strong link between economic development and environmental degradation in the US, with short-term patterns exhibiting a negative sign in inverted-S and S shapes. Long-term patterns, however, display a positive sign in S and inverted-S shapes. These results remain robust across different gas types but with a time-delay effects due to molecular differences and their respective impacts on climate and environmental health .