Stochastic and club convergence of ecological footprint: An empirical analysis for different income group of countries

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The convergence of environmental pollution is one of the contemporary issues in economics. Indeed, most of the long-run climate projections and future predictions of environmental conditions are based on convergence presumption. The pioneer studies initially focused on the convergence of carbon emission per capita, yet convergence of ecological footprint per capita, accepted as a more comprehensive environmental degradation indicator than carbon emission per capita, has been begun to examine by researchers as well. The main point of this paper is to examine the stochastic and club convergence of ecological footprint among different income groups of countries from 1961 to 2016 by a panel stationarity test with smooth shifts and log-t methods. According to the empirical findings, (a) cross-section dependence exists in all income groups, (b) the findings of the panel stationarity test with smooth shifts favored divergence, (c) there are several convergent clubs among different income groups. The existence of club convergence proposes that environmental policies should consider the different convergence paths associated with club membership.