School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China.
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, North China Electric Power University, Zhu Xin Zhuang, Bei Nong Road No. 2, Changping, 102206, Beijing, China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2019 Nov;26(31):31856-31872. doi: 10.1007/s11356-019-06343-z. Epub 2019 Sep 5.
In recent decades, climate change and environmental pollution have been at the center of global environmental debates. Nowadays, researchers have turned their attention to the linkage between real output and environmental quality and test the environmental Kuznets curve. Majority of the studies focus on a single pollutant aspect and measure the deterioration of the environment through carbon emission (CO) only. In contrary, the current study uses a comprehensive proxy, ecological footprint, to measure the environmental quality of the sixteen Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). The aim of this paper is to discover the impact of financial development, economic growth, and energy consumption (renewable and non-renewable) on the environment. In addition, for the first time, the current study includes biocapacity and human capital in the growth-energy-environment nexus in the case of CEECs. In doing so, we used annual data of sixteen CEE countries in perspective of the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative and cover the period of 1991-2014. For reliable findings, this study focuses on second-generation econometric approaches to check stationarity, cross-sectional dependency, and co-integration among the model parameters. The long-run estimations of the "Dynamic Seemingly Unrelated-co-integration Regression" (DSUR) signify that the effect of economic growth on ecological footprint is not stable and validate N-shaped relationship for cubic functional form between per capita income and ecological footprint (environmental quality). Empirical evidence divulges that financial development and energy use significantly contribute to environmental degradation while renewable energy improves environmental quality by declining ecological footprint significantly. Moreover, the significant effects of biocapacity and human capital are positive and negative on the ecological footprint, respectively. In robustness check through the "Feasible Generalized Least Square" (FGLS) and "Generalized Method of Moment" (GMM) models, we found consistent result. Lastly, the "Dumitrescu-Hurlin (D-H) Panel Causality Test" demonstrates that two-way causal relationship exists between EF and GDP, EF and FD, EF and EU, EF and BC, and EF and HC, while one-way causality is running from RE to EF. This study puts the present scenario of CEE economies in front of the policymakers and suggests that they should consider the vital role of renewable energy and human capital to get sustainability.
近几十年来，气候变化和环境污染一直是全球环境辩论的核心。如今，研究人员将注意力转向实际产出与环境质量之间的联系，并检验环境库兹涅茨曲线。大多数研究都集中在单一污染物方面，仅通过碳排放 (CO) 衡量环境恶化。相比之下，本研究使用综合指标生态足迹来衡量 16 个中东欧国家 (CEEC) 的环境质量。本文的目的是发现金融发展、经济增长和能源消耗（可再生和不可再生）对环境的影响。此外，本研究首次在 CEEC 案例中将生物承载力和人力资本纳入增长-能源-环境关系中。为此，我们使用了一带一路倡议背景下 16 个中东欧国家的年度数据，涵盖 1991-2014 年期间。为了获得可靠的发现，本研究侧重于第二代计量经济学方法来检查模型参数之间的平稳性、横截面相关性和协整。“动态似乎不相关协整回归”（DSUR）的长期估计表明，经济增长对生态足迹的影响不稳定，并验证了人均收入与生态足迹（环境质量）之间的三次函数形式的 N 形关系。实证证据表明，金融发展和能源使用对环境退化有显著贡献，而可再生能源通过显著降低生态足迹显著改善环境质量。此外，生物承载力和人力资本对生态足迹的影响分别为正和负。通过“可行广义最小二乘法”（FGLS）和“广义矩法”（GMM）模型进行稳健性检验，我们发现了一致的结果。最后，“杜米特雷斯库-赫林（D-H）面板因果检验”表明，EF 与 GDP、EF 与 FD、EF 与 EU、EF 与 BC 和 EF 与 HC 之间存在双向因果关系，而 RE 对 EF 存在单向因果关系。本研究将 CEEC 经济体的现状摆在决策者面前，并建议他们应考虑可再生能源和人力资本的重要作用，以实现可持续性。
