National culture and environmental sustainability: A cross-national analysis

This paper demonstrates the significance of culture in examining the relationship between income and the environment. Specifically, we examine the relationship among scores on the Environmental Sustainability Index of the World Economic Forum and the four dimensions of national culture proposed and measured by Hofstede (1983). We find that there are significant multidimensional interrelationships among the cultural and environmental sustainability measures. As an important application, we examine the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) phenomenon. Our finding suggests the limited applicability of the EKC notion when cultural variables are included in the model.