Inequality and the environment

Traditionally, researchers have been interested in the relationship between environmental quality and economic activities. Separating economic growth from environmental deterioration has attracted great attention. Therefore, the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis has been discussed in many studies. 1 Recent studies reviewed in the following sections have focused on the effect of inequality on environmental quality. Some researchers are concerned that achieving economic growth might not be enough to construct a sustainable society, not only from the viewpoint of distribution, but also from that of environmental issues. However, the number of studies investigating the relationship between inequality and the environment is much smaller than those investigating the relationship between economic growth and the environment. Therefore, this chapter focuses on the relationship between inequality and the environment. We conduct a review of the available literature and present the results of our empirical estimation.