In class, we discussed the environmental Kuznets curve.The environmental Kuznets curve is a U-shaped relationship between environmental quality and per capita GDP and suggests that very poor and very rich countries have good environmental quality while countries with intermediate levels of income per person have relatively poor environmental quality.

A.Summarize the three different problems with using the environmental Kuznets curve as a model of the relationship between per capita GDP and environmental quality that were discussed in class?

B.Read the Torras and Boyce paper about this from Ecological Economics (yes, this is a real journal) 25 (1998) 147-160, or at least read the introduction and the concluding remarks, which is actually what I do with about 60% of the academic papers that I "read".

What do these authors have to add to the discussion from class and in the lecture notes?

If you don't have a copy of this paper at home, you can find it at

http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/cvs/boyce_items/Torras-Boyce_Ecol_Econ1998.pdf

C.Would a copy of the Torras and Boyce paper make a lovely holiday gift for, say, Isabella Helen Lugoski's birthday, the opening of the U.S. EPA or the formation of the United Arab Emirates?Why or why not?