Exposition beyond EKC theory and the impact of the growth on the environment: do developed and democratic countries matter?

This study aims to determine the impact of growth on the environment. In addition, this study also explores how developed countries and democratic nations influence this impact.The measure of the environment undertaken in the study is environmental efficiency (EE) using Data envelopment analysis (DEA). The quantile panel data regression is applied to determine the impact of GDPC (Gross Domestic Per Capita) on the EE. Both developed economic status and democracies are applied as having an interaction effect on the impact of GDPC on the EE. The clean data applied in this study is hand-picked for 106 countries with ten years (2012–2021). It is found thata country with high EE will be able to adhere to the EKC theory, and beyond the threshold level of GDPC, it will cause less damage to environment. Moreover, only high EE countries (irrespective of developed or non-developed) would stick to EKC theory. In contrast, a developed country with low or moderate EE will damage environment more than a similar developing country. Furthermore, a democratic country always reduces environmental degradation irrespective of EE levels.