THE INEQUALITY OF NATURAL RESOURCES CONSUMPTION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT LEVEL BASED ON THE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT AND THE HDI

Abstract

This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the current situation of natural resources consumption in the world and its relationship with the level of social development. The Ecological Footprint concept is used to indicate human beings' environmental impact, and the Human Development Index (HDI) is used as a process for the social development level. Based on the dataset of 136 countries from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), we calculate the Gini coefficients of the total Ecological Footprint per person (EF) and its sub items, i.e., Renewable Resources Footprint per person (REF) and Energy Footprint per person (EEF). The results indicate that significant inequality exists in natural resources consumption among the 136 countries from 1996 to 2005, and inequality of the EEF is the largest. We also calculate the Lorenz asymmetry coefficients of EF, REF and EEF, which are all greater than 1, indicating that the inequality results from some countries having extremely high resources consumption. The regression analyses of EF, REF and EEF with HDI, respectively, are made to show that there is a significant U-shaped relationship between natural resources consumption per person and the social development level rather than an inverted U-shaped relationship. Therefore, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis is not supported by this research.