THE QUALITY OF THE ENVIRONMENT IN EU COUNTRIES IN RELATION TO GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT -- STATIC AND DYNAMIC TAXONOMIC ANALYSES.

It is a commonly accepted thesis that the quality of the environment increases together with the level of society's prosperity expressed by gross domestic product (GDP). The relationship displayed by the environmental Kuznets curve partially confirms the above statement. In view of today's strong interest in environmental protection problems, the relationship defined by the environmental Kuznets curve is worth verifying. The purpose of the research is to design a synthetic measure of the quality of the environment and specify the relation of this measure to gross domestic product, and furthermore to identify the impact of variables representing the quality of the environment on the value of the quality of the environment measure. The analysis covered data from 25 European Union countries in the years 2004-2016. The synthetic measure of the quality of the environment was designed using the TOPSIS-CRITIC method. The result of the analyses is ascertainment of modification of the Kuznets curve, understood as the relationship between GDP and the quality of the environment. It was found that the Kuznets curve assumed a U-like shape in both classes of the analysed countries (growth and decrease of the geometric mean of the synthetic measure of the quality of the environment). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]