Department of Economics, School of Business, Mody University of Science and Technology, Lakshmangarh, Sikar, Rajasthan, India.
Centre for Excellence in Sustainable Development, Goa Institute of Management, Goa, India.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Feb;28(8):9067-9083. doi: 10.1007/s11356-020-11295-w. Epub 2020 Oct 30.
In the preceding two decades, the expansion of financial services has played a vital role in pursuing economic growth agendas in the developing Asian nations. However, its harmful effect on environmental quality cannot be denied. In this backdrop, in the present study, we investigated whether the financial sector development moderated the ecological footprint, carbon footprint, and land footprint in the eight developing nations of South and Southeast Asia from 1990 to 2015. In doing so, we included the per capita income, energy solutions, and trade expansions as determinants of the ecological indicators. The results of the second-generation unit root tests and Westerlund's cointegration test reported the long-run stability and cointegration, respectively. To navigate the possible cross-country dependency, we employed the cross-sectional augmented autoregressive distributed lag approach (CS-ARDL). The results confirmed that per capita income, energy solutions, trade expansion, and financial sector development invigorated the ecological footprint, carbon footprint, and land footprint in the long run. Further, it is reported that the development in the financial sector has a significant moderating impact on the nexus between energy and environmental footprints. In other words, the financial sector development drove the association between the overall environmental quality and energy solutions in the long run. Similarly, we observed that the financial sector development worked as a significant mediator between environmental proxies and trade expansion. By including the ecological footprint, carbon footprint, and land footprint as environmental proxies, the study provides the wider environmental spectrum. Based on the outcomes of the study, we proposed a novel scheme, which may help to address the harmful environmental impacts of the financial sector development in the selected developing nations.
在过去的二十年中，金融服务业的扩张在追求发展中亚洲国家的经济增长议程方面发挥了至关重要的作用。然而，它对环境质量的有害影响是不可否认的。在此背景下，本研究调查了金融部门发展是否在 1990 年至 2015 年间调节了南亚和东南亚八个发展中国家的生态足迹、碳足迹和土地足迹。在这样做的过程中，我们将人均收入、能源解决方案和贸易扩张作为生态指标的决定因素。第二代单位根检验和 Westerlund 协整检验的结果分别报告了长期稳定性和协整。为了应对可能存在的国家间依存关系，我们采用了横截面扩充自回归分布滞后方法（CS-ARDL）。结果证实，人均收入、能源解决方案、贸易扩张和金融部门发展从长期来看促进了生态足迹、碳足迹和土地足迹。此外，报告称金融部门的发展对能源和环境足迹之间的关系具有显著的调节作用。换句话说，金融部门的发展从长期来看推动了整体环境质量和能源解决方案之间的关联。同样，我们观察到金融部门的发展在环境指标和贸易扩张之间起着重要的中介作用。通过将生态足迹、碳足迹和土地足迹作为环境指标，本研究提供了更广泛的环境范围。基于研究结果，我们提出了一个新的方案，这可能有助于解决所选发展中国家金融部门发展对环境的有害影响。
