Deindustrialization, reindustrialization and environmental degradation: Evidence from ecological footprint of Turkey

As in most developing countries, Turkey has witnessed the deindustrialization process in 1990s. However, unlike the others, the reindustrialization experience has started in the country since 2002. Despite the existence of some arguments about the environmental impact of such structural changes, they are mostly ignored by empirical studies. For this purpose, the main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of structural changes on environmental degradation in Turkey for the period from 1970 to 2017. In addition, the impact of real income, urbanization and human capital on environmental degradation is also observed. In doing so, the study employs the NARDL approach to clearly obtain the impact of industrialization with both positive and negative shocks. Moreover, both CO2 emission and ecological footprint are used as the indicator of environmental degradation to compare the environmental impact of structural transformation on different degradation indicators. The findings show that deindustrialization results in reduced carbon emissions, but with no significant impact on ecological footprint. Furthermore, we discovered that while both industrialization and reindustrialization lead to lower environmental quality, reindustrialization holds the potential to be less harmful to the environment because of advancements in technology. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd