• Energy Research

In this study, we investigate whether outbound foreign direct investment (OFDI) either augments or impedes domestic public and private investment, incorporating the role of institutional quality into the context of developed and emerging countries. To this end, we apply a cross-sectional-autoregressive-distributed lag (CS-ARDL) approach to analyze panel data from the period 1996–2017. Our empirical findings suggest that OFDI augments private capital formation for developed countries. Institutional quality (IQ) is found to be a driving factor that promotes private capital formation in the established economies of developed countries. However, OFDI has a negative association with the public capital formation in the established economies of developed countries, while IQ has a positive association with it. In the context of emerging economies, OFDI is found to be too insignificant to have an effect on private and public capital formation. Interestingly, IQ has a detrimental effect on both private and public capital formation in emerging economies. Our findings are robust. The empirical findings of this study imply that institutional quality should continue to be improved in developed countries, while it should surpass a certain threshold for emerging economies to promote domestic capital formation.

Recently, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries increased their foreign investment outflows (OFDI), underpinning domestic investment (DCF) and diversifying their economies to reduce the reliance on hydrocarbon economies and augmenting green investments. Thus, our research study examines the effects of OFDI on aggregate capital formation and the decomposing effects of capital formation in to private as well as public investment by applying the common correlation effects (CS-ARDL) panel data methodology in the GCC countries. Our empirical result findings show that OFDI do not significantly spur domestic investment in the GCC countries. However, our disaggregated analysis shows that OFDI significantly contributes to private capital formation only while its contribution to public capital formation remains inconclusive. The extensive public involvement in the economies causes a crowding-out effect, eventually impedes the economic diversification, competitiveness and green activities. Our empirical evidence provides a few policy implications.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have been the key source of extreme environmental degradation and have an adverse impact on climate and human activities. Although a large number of studies have explored the determinants of CO2 emissions, the role of institutional quality has not been fully studied. Our study contributes to the existing literature by examining the influence of financial development, institutional quality, foreign direct investment, trade openness, urbanization, and renewable energy consumption on CO2 emissions over the period 1996–2020 by utilizing the dynamic autoregressive distributed lag simulations. The empirical findings of the study indicate that the indicators of governance, trade, financial development, and renewable energy consumption adversely affect CO2 emissions, while urbanization and foreign direct investment contribute to environmental degradation. The empirical results of this study indicate that in order to mitigate environmental degradation and to achieve environmental sustainability, the government should establish consistency between environmental and economic policies. Moreover, in order to achieve low carbon emissions and sustainable development, countries need viable financial institutions that focus on green growth by promoting clean production process strategies to ensure the reduction of CO2 emissions.

Since globalization has increased both production and population, it has also increased environmental damage. This is why the development of renewable energy sources is crucial to the survival of humanity and the planet itself. Business patterns across the various nations, however, have changed significantly over time. This study examines how environmental taxes and renewable energy electricity affect renewable energy consumption in emerging seven economies by using panel dataset over the period of 1990 to 2020. Control variables include economic growth, carbon emissions, and environmental innovation. The results confirmed the presence of the long-run co-integration association, the existence of slope coefficient heterogeneity, and the dependency of cross sections using several panel data methods. Since the data was not normally distributed, a new technique known as method of moments quantile regression (MMQR) was applied in this study. The projected results contend that the major factors of renewable energy consumption are renewable energy output, environmental taxation, economic growth, and carbon emissions. However, eco-friendly innovations drastically cut back on the need for renewable energy. Bootstrap quantile regression verifies the results' reliability, and the panel Granger causality test corroborates that the listed factors have a bidirectional causal relationship with renewable energy usage. Furthermore, this research recommends boosting spending on renewable electricity, the environmental tax sector, and ecological innovation in order to expand the use of renewable energy.

<abstract> <p>High-income countries have experienced rapid economic growth, urbanization, consumption of renewable and non-renewable energy, increased trade dependency, and the attainment and maintenance of higher living standards over the last four decades, while also experiencing an increasing trend in environmental degradation. These experiences have fueled our desire to learn more about the factors that influence the ecological footprint and carbon footprint of high-income countries. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effects of natural resources, urbanization, GDP per capita, population, and fossil fuels on ecological and carbon footprint for 34 high-income countries over the period 2003–2015. Using the STIRPAT model, the results confirm the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in the case of total ecological footprint while the link between economic growth and carbon footprint is in U-shape. In terms of total ecological footprint determinants, population reduction as well as efficient urban design, are viable solutions. The findings support the positive and statistically significant influence of population, urbanization, and fossil fuels on total ecological footprint, as well as the negative impact of ecological efficiency. The findings of the carbon footprint suggest that reduction in coal and oil consumption, as well as increasing the use of gas as a source of energy, are all viable choices to mitigate carbon footprint. Furthermore, increasing ecological efficiency could be a viable policy option for reducing high-income countries' footprints.</p> </abstract>

This study examines the effects of fiscal policy, human capital, natural resources, and energy productivity on the load capacity factor (LCF) in BRICS countries between 1990 and 2018 in order to meet the COP27 goal of promoting environmental sustainability. The dynamic common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) estimator revealed the long-term effect, showing that fiscal policy, energy production, and human capital contribute to the LCF, but natural resources mitigate the LCF. On the flip side, the results of the panel causality test show that LCF may be predicted by energy productivity and human capital. The causality results reveal that LCF can forecast fiscal and natural resource policies. On the basis of the findings, significant policy suggestions are provided, including the public investment that may be directed towards the development of green industrial methods and the revision of the policies connected to exploring these natural resources, particularly fossil fuels. ; Provincial Social Science Foundation of Henan, (2022BFX018); Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, (23JNLH04) ; Annual Planning Projects of Provincial Social Science Foundation of Henan [2022BFX018]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [23JNLH04]

Our study explores the impact of financialization on carbon emissions by utilizing diverse financialization proxies, particularly for China. We examine the impact of financialization, institutional quality, globalization, natural resources, trade openness, and renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption on environmental pollution over the period 1996–2017 by utilizing dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) simulations. The empirical findings of the study indicate that institutional quality, trade, globalization, natural resources, and renewable energy consumption significantly decrease environmental pollution in the long run, while foreign direct investment and financialization have neutral effects on carbon emissions. Our findings demonstrate that a 1% increase in institutional quality, trade, IFDI, renewable energy, and globalization leads to a decrease in CO2 emissions by 0.198, 0.016, 0.075, 0.010, and 0.072%, respectively. Even though financialization indexes contributed insignificantly to environmental degradation, other explanatory variables significantly affected carbon emissions through indirect effects of financialization. Financialization indexes behave in a similar context, and these proxy indicators are good parameters to understand the complex nature of financialization. Moreover, in order to achieve low carbon emissions and sustainable development, countries need viable financial institutions that focus on green growth by promoting clean production process strategies to ensure the reduction of CO2 emissions.

This study investigates the impact of income generated from natural resources on environmental sustainability and analyses the moderating role of institutional quality in carbon emissions function. An extensive dataset from 61 developing nations covering the years 2000-2018 has been taken, which uses a dynamic heterogeneous panel data model. Our study follows a rigorous methodology by applying the pooled mean group estimator. An extensive examination of the impacts over the short run and long run is possible using this method. This study reveals multifaceted findings: in the short run, the effect of institutional quality and natural resources revenues on carbon emissions is insignificant, implying that such factors have a relatively minor impact. The long-term examination reveals that income derived from natural resources causes a spike in carbon emissions, which causes environmental deterioration and climate change. Strong institutional quality can significantly mitigate the adverse effects of correlation between revenues from natural resources and carbon emissions, which have been observed. The study's moderating effect of natural resources richness, which gradually reduces institutional quality's ability to reduce carbon emissions, is a crucial finding. Our study significantly advances the field of environmental economics, especially when discussing sustainable development in emerging nations with abundant natural resources. It emphasizes the delicate balance that must be struck between preserving efficient environmental governance and maximizing the richness of natural resources. Our findings underscore the crucial need for developing nations to strengthen their institutional frameworks and capacities and have substantial policy implications. These steps are essential to ensuring that the use of natural resources is in line with environmental sustainability objectives, turning resource curses into blessings for long-term development and environmental preservation. This research opens the door to sector-specific impacts and personalized policy interventions in resource-rich developing economies.