SOME EMPIRICAL INDICATIONS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL-QUALITY AND ECONOMIC-DEVELOPMENT

The paper examines the relation between countries' state of the enviro nment (defined as acceptable, marginal or unacceptable, according to v alues of ambient accumulation of pollutants) and stage of economic dev elopment (defined as low, middle and high income), using the concentra tion of sulphur dioxide in urban areas and dissolved oxygen in rivers. Univariate and ordered probit models are estimated for air and water quality. The results indicate that the probability of having acceptabl e environmental quality in a country increases with respect to the exa mined pollutants as the country moves to a higher state of economic de velopment.