EFFECTS OF TRADE AND GROWTH ON AIR POLLUTION IN THE AGGREGATED SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

This paper examines the impacts of trade intensity as measured by the share of exports plus imports in GDP and economic growth proxies by the GDP per capita on air pollution as measured by CO2 emissions. We focus on Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole during the period 1961-2003 to see how trade intensity and GDP per capita growth have impacted CO2 emissions in that zone. We use an Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to analyze both the short and long-run impacts of these variables on the environment. Our results indicate that in the short-run a 1% increase in economic growth leads to 1.04% increase in CO2 emission thus a degradation of air quality, while a 1% increase in trade intensity account for 0.15% decrease in pollution. Most importantly in the long-run, a 1% increase in GDP per capita contributes to 1.8% increase in air pollution while a 1% increase in trade intensity leads to 0.57% decrease in CO2 emission thus beneficial to the environment.