Analysis of the impact of human capital on ecological footprint and its sub-components in Türkiye within the scope of Kuznets Curve

In the 21st century, environmental pollution, which has become one of the most important problems of the century, is getting worse with the problems brought by climate change. The fact that developed countries adopt more environmentally friendly practices with the completion of their development processes and propose policies to prevent environmental pollution to developing countries and offer various sanctions has brought along many national and international regulations. The efficiency of environmental policies is important to achieve the targets set by the countries themselves through national regulations and the targets set by global organizations through international regulations. In this context, this study investigates the effects of human capital on environmental pollution in Türkiye by using the data sets between 1973-2019. Ecological footprint and six sub-components of ecological footprint are used to represent environmental pollution. The independent variables are real GDP per capita, schooling-based human capital index and life expectancy at birth. The effects of human capital on environmental pollution are analyzed using the Fractional Frequency Fourier Augmented ARDL (FFFA-ARDL) bounds test. With this method, both long-run and short-run effects can be estimated. The originality of the study is enhanced by the fact that it is the first study in which the effects of human capital on ecological footprint and its six sub-components are tested together and non-linear relationships are considered and up-to-date econometric techniques are used. According to the FFFA-ARDL bounds test results, a significant cointegration relationship in all seven models was estimated. This means that along with GDP per capita, education and health factors representing human capital also significantly affect environmental pollution. The findings confirm an inverted U relationship between real GDP per capita and environmental pollution in the long run, indicating that the EKC is valid in Türkiye. At the same time, health and education factors also support the inverted U relationship. The study's most important finding is that human capital's effect on environmental pollution is non-linear and changes direction after a particular threshold value.