Testing the ecological hysteresis hypothesis in the world's top polluting countries: A regime-switching time series analysis (1961-2022)

This study examines the validity and temporal evolution of the Ecological Hysteresis Hypothesis (EHH) for the world's ten most polluted countries from 1961 to 2022. Inspired by labor-market and carbon hysteresis, EHH posits that environmental indicators may not revert to historical means after shocks, implying path dependence. Using per-capita ecological footprint as the core indicator, we find strong evidence of hysteresis in eight of ten countries, with regime-dependent differences and both positive and negative forms over time. Robustness checks using the EF/BC ratio alongside PEF confirm non-stationarity in eight countries, showing that ecological pressure persistently exceeds biocapacity and that hysteresis operates not only in per-capita demand but also relative to ecosystem carrying capacity. These patterns indicate the persistence of environmental degradation, suggesting that short-lived, one-off interventions are unlikely to deliver lasting transformations. Policy should therefore be long-term, adaptive, and sensitive to country-specific regimes, prioritizing reforms that reduce fossil-fuel dependence and strengthen governance quality. While we apply a suite of unit-root and structural-break tests, the study contribution lies less in methods than in articulating and empirically evaluating EHH and in offering a policy design framework grounded in hysteresis dynamics.