Department of Economics, The University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan.
Department of Accounting and Finance, College of Business Administration, Al Yamamah University, P.O. Box 13541, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Nov;29(52):79306-79319. doi: 10.1007/s11356-022-21295-7. Epub 2022 Jun 16.
Improving the quality of environmental indicators has become a global concern that necessitates the identification of possible channels through which environmental welfare can be enhanced worldwide. Against this backdrop, this current study aims to elucidate the environmental effects of ethnic diversity, controlling for financial development, urbanization, economic growth, and energy consumption in the context of 51 less-developed countries during the period from 1996 to 2016. For measuring the environmental impacts, we use both the ecological footprint and carbon dioxide emission figures of these countries. Overall, the cointegration analysis confirms the existence of long-run relationships among the study variables. Besides, the regression analysis reveals that ethnic diversity deteriorates environmental quality by surging the ecological footprint and carbon dioxide emission levels of the selected nations. Similarly, financial development and energy consumption are found to impose identical adversities on the environment while urbanization is evidenced to ensure environmental welfare. Lastly, for both the environmental indicators considered in this study, the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis is verified from the findings. Hence, considering these key outcomes, a set of relevant environmental welfare-related policy interventions are recommended in the context of less-developed countries.
提高环境指标的质量已成为全球关注的焦点，这需要确定可能的渠道，以提高全球范围内的环境福利。在此背景下，本研究旨在阐明在 1996 年至 2016 年期间，在 51 个欠发达国家的背景下，控制金融发展、城市化、经济增长和能源消耗的情况下，种族多样性对环境的影响。为了衡量环境影响，我们使用这些国家的生态足迹和二氧化碳排放量来衡量。总体而言，协整分析证实了研究变量之间存在长期关系。此外，回归分析表明，种族多样性通过提高选定国家的生态足迹和二氧化碳排放水平来恶化环境质量。同样，金融发展和能源消耗被发现对环境造成相同的不利影响，而城市化则被证明能确保环境福利。最后，根据这项研究中考虑的这两个环境指标，从研究结果中验证了环境库兹涅茨曲线假说。因此，考虑到这些关键结果，建议在欠发达国家的背景下采取一系列与环境福利相关的政策干预措施。
