Date

Fall 2020

Document Type

Paper

Department

School of Business

Faculty Advisor

Nate Peach

Abstract

This study looked at the effect of economic growth on the CO2 emissions of each U.S. state. Data from all 50 states and Washington D.C. was collected from multiple sources across the years of 1990 to 2017. This data was tested using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions to test the hypothesis that there was a positive causation between the growth of the economy and an increase of CO2 Emissions. The results of this study were that there was a negative relationship between the growth of the economy, based on GDP per state, and the amount of CO2 emissions produced. However, for a state, which may not have the resources to consider decreasing the energy consumption, there was a positive causation between economic growth based through the population and the total CO2 Emissions. The theory was developed that GDP increases to a point where the amount of energy consumed does not matter, because there are more solutions available to mitigate CO2 Emissions.

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Business Commons

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