School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China.
Beijing Key Lab of Energy Economics and Environmental Management, Beijing, 100081, China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2019 Sep;26(26):26782-26796. doi: 10.1007/s11356-019-05911-7. Epub 2019 Jul 12.
Many recent studies have focused on the influencing factors of the ecological footprint, but less attention has been given to human capital. Human capital, which is based on education and rate of return on education, may reduce the ecological footprint since environmental issues are human-induced. The current study investigates the impact of human capital on the ecological footprint in India for the period 1971 to 2014. The outcomes of the newly developed combined cointegration test of Bayer and Hanck disclose the long-run equilibrium relationship between variables. The findings reveal a significant negative contribution of human capital to the ecological footprint. The results of the causality test show that human capital Granger causes the ecological footprint without any feedback. In addition, energy consumption adds to the ecological footprint, while the relationship between economic growth and ecological footprint follows an inverted U-shaped pattern. The findings unveil the potential to reduce the ecological footprint by developing human capital.
许多近期的研究都集中在生态足迹的影响因素上，但对人力资本的关注较少。人力资本是基于教育和教育回报率的，由于环境问题是人为引起的，因此可能会减少生态足迹。本研究考察了 1971 年至 2014 年期间印度人力资本对生态足迹的影响。Bayer 和 Hanck 开发的新组合协整检验的结果揭示了变量之间的长期均衡关系。研究结果表明，人力资本对生态足迹有显著的负向贡献。因果关系检验的结果表明，人力资本格兰杰导致生态足迹，而不存在任何反馈。此外，能源消耗增加了生态足迹，而经济增长与生态足迹之间的关系呈倒 U 型。这些发现揭示了通过发展人力资本来减少生态足迹的潜力。
