Investigating biodiversity: An economic analysis of global endangered species loss

Abstract

There has been a rapid increase in interest among economists to examine the economic causes of biodiversity loss. The goal of this thesis is to investigate biodiversity loss using percentage of endangered species across countries for a three year period of time. This is accomplished by developing a series of models to examine the impact of various economic factors on biodiversity loss, in this case using percentage of threatened species as a proxy.

The results indicate that the development of economic growth can impact endangered species loss. The results also demonstrate that there is a relationship between percentage of endangered species and per capita income that suggests the existence of an N shaped Environmental Kuznets Curve.

Date of Award	2007
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	Eastern Illinois University
Supervisor	Hui Li (Supervisor)