A Literature Survey on Environmental Kuznets Curve

The relationship between environmental protection and economic development has long been a controversial issue. This paper presents a literature survey on Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), which includes genesis, explanations and empirical evidence of EKC. The conclusion of this paper are, on the one hand, some factors are key reasons to EKC, including income elasticity of environmental quality demand, scale, technological and composition effects, international trade, FDI and history accidents, etc., on the other hand, from the empirical literature of EKC, the environmental quality indicators improved with public health. Moreover, Different data type will lead to different empirical result, so it is important to choose suitable indicators and data. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of RIUDS