School of Economics, Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2020 Oct;27(29):36718-36731. doi: 10.1007/s11356-020-09704-1. Epub 2020 Jun 21.
This study investigates the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on carbon dioxide emissions for a panel of 91 countries over the period 1990 to 2017. The study constructs an ICT index through principal component analysis and tests for the presence of cross-sectional dependence (CSD) in the data. The study employs pooled ordinary least squares, fixed-effects model, and system-generalized method of moments estimation techniques with panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) to tackle the issues of CSD in the data. The findings of the study show that ICT reduces CO emissions for the full sample of countries. However, the comparative study of developed and developing countries depicts that ICT encourages environmental sustainability in developed countries whereas opposite results are found for developing countries. Moreover, presence of the environmental Kuznets curve is confirmed for the full sample as well as for developed and developing countries. It suggests that with higher levels of development of a country, it would be possible to contribute towards environmental sustainability along with ICT diffusion. Therefore, the outcome of this study may be helpful for policymaker and policies may be designed to encourage ICT investments in developing countries, as ICT will take care of environmental sustainability with higher levels of development.
本研究考察了 1990 年至 2017 年期间 91 个国家的信息和通信技术（ICT）对二氧化碳排放的影响。本研究通过主成分分析构建了一个 ICT 指数，并检验了数据中是否存在横截面相关性（CSD）。本研究采用了带有面板校正标准误差（PCSE）的 pooled ordinary least squares、固定效应模型和系统广义矩估计技术来解决数据中的 CSD 问题。研究结果表明，ICT 减少了所有国家的 CO 排放。然而，对发达国家和发展中国家的比较研究表明，ICT 促进了发达国家的环境可持续性，而发展中国家则出现了相反的结果。此外，对于整个样本以及发达国家和发展中国家，都证实了环境库兹涅茨曲线的存在。这表明，随着一个国家发展水平的提高，在促进 ICT 普及的同时，也有可能为环境可持续性做出贡献。因此，本研究的结果可能对决策者有帮助，可以制定政策鼓励发展中国家进行 ICT 投资，因为随着发展水平的提高，ICT 将兼顾环境可持续性。
