The role of social capital in environmental protection efforts: evidence from Turkey

Abstract

The existing literature has recognized the role and importance of social capital in natural resource management. Several studies provide empirical evidence that higher levels of social capital may positively affect individuals' behavior towards natural resources management. This study is therefore an attempt to investigate the environmental quality impacts of social capital and central government expenditures on environmental protection, taking spatial dimension into account from 2009 to 2017 for Turkey. A general-to-specific approach has been adopted where spatial variations in the relationships have been examined with a dynamic spatial Durbin model, using the panel data at NUTS3 level. The empirical results do not support the validity of an environmental Kuznets curve, rather a U-shaped environmental Kuznets curve is validated, which exhibits spatial dependence. Estimation results show that industrial production has detrimental effects on the environment, while social capital improves it. The central government expenditures on environmental protection are effective in the abatement of pollution, and its effectiveness is enhanced when social capital is controlled. In addition to spatial spillover effects, our results show the presence of strong path dependency; that is, there is certain pollution inertia. Moreover, environmental protection policies would be more effective if social capital levels are improved.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental Kuznets curve
• particulate matter (PM₁₀)
• social capital
• dynamic spatial models
• Turkey

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers, the Editor-in-Chief, and Associate Editor for helpful comments and discussions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Although PM₁₀ data are available for a longer period of time, data for provincial government expenditure and the number of NGOs are available only for the 2009–2017 period.

2 In case of the missing data, annual PM₁₀ averages at NUTS2 level are employed.

3 In order to see if the results are robust, an alternative contiguity matrix has been also employed as a weight matrix for both exploratory spatial analysis and spatial econometric models. The results are robust, but they are not presented here to save space.

4 In order to check the robustness of the results, alternative proxy variables for social capital have been employed, which are the ratio of the total number of environmental NGOs in a province to the total number of NGOs, and the ratio of the total number of environmental NGOs in a province to the population, respectively. The estimation results for both models are in line with those discussed in our paper. They are not presented in the paper to save space, but they are available upon request.

5 https://environmentalindicators.csb.gov.tr/ (Accessed on January 31, 2020).

6 https://ec.europa.eu/info/energy-climate-change-environment_en (Accessed on January 31, 2020).