Khalid Khaizran, Usman Muhammad, Mehdi Muhammad Abuzar
Department of Economics, Government College University, Faisalabad, 38000, Pakistan.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Feb;28(6):6422-6436. doi: 10.1007/s11356-020-10896-9. Epub 2020 Sep 30.
In recent years, financial development, trade policies, and energy performance have attracted attention due to their behavior on environmental quality. Therefore, the current study examines the impact of financial development, trade openness, primary and renewable energy utilization, and economic growth on the ecological footprint in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries from 1990 to 2017. This article progresses the proficiency of financial development by utilizing the comprehensive and multidimensional index of financial sector development based on their depth, access, and efficiency of their financial institutions and markets. In order to estimate the robust results, this study employed the cross-sectional dependency tests that allow the second-generation unit root, Westerlund cointegration, augmented mean group (AMG), error correction model (ECM), and Dumitrescu-Hurlin (D-H) panel non-causality tests. The results revealed a very weak effect of financial development in a panel of SAARC countries, while country-specific results reveal that financial development significantly enhances the pollution level in the case of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. However, it improves the environmental quality in Nepal. Furthermore, trade openness only improves the environmental quality in the case of Nepal. Additionally, the findings explore that primary energy consumption enhances the ecological footprint in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka and reduces in case of Bhutan. On the contrary, renewable energy consumption significantly improves the environmental quality in all countries except Bangladesh. Finally, consistent with these findings, a number of suitable policy implications are expressed in the angle of SAARC economies.
近年来，金融发展、贸易政策和能源绩效因其对环境质量的影响而备受关注。因此，本研究考察了1990年至2017年期间金融发展、贸易开放度、一次能源和可再生能源利用以及经济增长对南亚区域合作联盟（SAARC）国家生态足迹的影响。本文通过利用基于金融机构和市场的深度、可及性和效率的金融部门发展综合多维指标，提升了金融发展的研究水平。为了估计稳健的结果，本研究采用了横截面依存性检验，该检验允许进行第二代单位根检验、韦斯特伦德协整检验、增强平均组（AMG）检验、误差修正模型（ECM）检验以及杜米特雷斯库-赫尔林（D-H）面板非因果关系检验。结果显示，在SAARC国家面板中，金融发展的影响非常微弱，而特定国家的结果表明，在孟加拉国和斯里兰卡，金融发展显著提高了污染水平。然而，在尼泊尔，它改善了环境质量。此外，贸易开放度仅在尼泊尔改善了环境质量。此外，研究结果表明，一次能源消费在孟加拉国、尼泊尔和斯里兰卡增加了生态足迹，而在不丹则减少了。相反，可再生能源消费在除孟加拉国以外的所有国家都显著改善了环境质量。最后，与这些研究结果一致，从SAARC经济体的角度提出了一些合适的政策建议。
