An empirical investigation of biodiversity loss from threatened species perspective: A comparative study

Using panel data for 113 countries over a three-year period of time, this research investigates the empirical relationship between the changes of threatened mammal species and economic development by comparing three different measures: 1 percentage changes 2 species richness 3 total threatened species. An N-shaped non-linear relationship is found when the dependent variable is the percentage changes; the Environment Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis is supported when species richness is applied and a non-linear relationship does exist for the total threatened species model. Results suggest that methodological differences, such as measurement, can bring very different results; caution should be exercised even when we evaluate EKC studies within a common topic such as, for instance, biodiversity loss from the threatened species perspective.