An Empirical Study On The Relationship Between Income Gap And Environmental Quality-based On EKC Hypothesis Of China

The relationship between income level and environmental quality, thatEKC (Environmental Kuznets “inverted U” curve) hypothesis has been studiedin theoretical and empirical by many scholars. In addition to income level,income gap is also proved the other important factor. In this paper first weprove the environmental quality is the function of individual income in theangle of mathematic model. After estimating the income gap (Gini coefficient),using the environmental quality, income level and the Gini coefficient data,this paper examines the inverted U-shaped relationship between the level ofincome and environmental quality. The results found that the income gap,especially urban income gap, play the crucial role in EKC curve. Then fromthe east area, the middle area and the west area illustrate the income gap effectincome gap. That is to say, with the expansion of income gap it causedenvironmental quality deteriorating in China. In addition to environmentalregulations, reducing the income gap and enhancing the degree of theenvironmental policy-making participation will improve environmentalquality.