ASSOCIATION BETWEEN ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL PARAMETERS IN GLOBALISED INDIA

Since the upsurge of globalisation in the last quarter of 20th century, global economy is ever-growing. The unidirectional objective of achieving accelerated economic growth has relied significantly on excessive consumption leading to accelerated extraction and exploitation of natural resources, steep rise in industrial pollution, and accumulation of unmanageable amount of waste. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the time-series impact of globalised economy on environment in India since the economic and fiscal reforms of 1991. A new method is proposed to construct a time-series index of environmental degradation by combining information on different components of environment. Econometric time-series models have been used to assess association between economic and environmental indicators, and gauge long-run effects of economic variables on the index of environmental degradation. Results show significant association of economic growth parameters, viz., Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its constituents on environment. Strong cointegration between temperature and GDP has also been detected.