Abstract:-

This paper explores the joint impact of economic growth and urbanization on CO2 and N2O emissions in emerging and developing economies from 1998 to 2019. For the analysis, we employ a semiparametric generalized additive model in order to address potential issues of nonlinearity for the urbanization and growth effects. Additionally, panel threshold models are used to evaluate the threshold influence of economic growth on emissions under different levels of urbanization. Our results reveal an M-shaped relationship for urbanization and CO2 emissions and a linear trend for N2O emissions. On the other hand, the effect of growth on emissions appears to decrease after the highest threshold value of urbanization only for CO2 emissions. Overall, sustained urbanization rates appear to benefit emerging and developing economies in terms of reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, but not in nitrous oxide emissions.