Environmental Kuznets Curve for Water Pollution: The Case of Border Countries

Abstract

This paper looks for evidence of an environmental Kuznets curve for water pollution in countries that share ma-jor rivers as their border. The data in this paper consist of a panel of 21 years and 30 countries, seven of which are border countries. The turning point for the border countries is much lower than that for the other subset. A t-test comparing group means for income and biochemical oxygen demand levels for both subsets finds no statis-tical difference for either variable, implying that countries sharing a river may be able to enforce environmental regulations more effectively than countries not sharing a river.