Unionization and the environment: a general equilibrium approach

Two seemingly unrelated issues involving economic growth have received a great deal of attention in the development literature: the environmental Kuznets curve and the union strength hypothesis. The former explains much of the inverted U-shaped relationship between income growth and environmental degradation, while the latter touches upon the inverted U-shaped pattern between the strength of unions as income rises. In view of these two inverted U relations, regarding income growth, one naturally would conjecture the existence of link between the strength of labour unions and the environment. In particular, would the growth of labour unions precipitate environmental degradation?