School of Economics, Hainan University, Haikou City, Hainan, China.
Institute of Open Economy, Hainan province, Haikou, China.
Eval Rev. 2023 Aug;47(4):653-679. doi: 10.1177/0193841X221135673. Epub 2022 Oct 25.
At the present time, information and communication technology (ICT) has played a vital role in socio-economic development such as economic growth, literacy, life expectancy, and employment levels in societies, however, such development has come with various environmental damages perspectives. This study scrutinizes the impact of ICT, economic growth, and foreign direct investment (FDI) on carbon dioxide (CO) emissions in the 44 One Belt and Road Initiative (OBRI) countries split into sub-region from 1991 to 2019. This study applied various econometrics approaches such as cross-sectional dependence, second-generation unit root, and Westerlund panel cointegration techniques are executed to analyze the panel data set. The full modified ordinary lease square and dynamic ordinary lease square estimators are applied to investigate the long-term influence of ICT development, GDP (economic growth), and FDI on CO emissions. The empirical analysis was performed at a disaggregated level to assess the possible environmental influences across the OBRI countries. Overall, the results reported that broadband and mobile development have an adverse effect on CO emissions. The finding further reveals that the broadband indicator negatively affects CO emissions in all OBRI regions except South Asia. Similarly, the mobile use indicator protects the environmental quality in all OBRI regions except MENA (Middle East and North Africa) and Central Asia. Regarding country-wise analysis, broadband has alleviated the pollution level in 21 countries, while mobile has alleviated it in 15 countries. Moreover, economic growth is responsible to increase pollution levels in all panels and regions except Europe. Besides, the results highlight that higher FDI reduces environmental pollution whereby, the pollution halo hypothesis is supported to hold for all OBRI panels and regions except MENA countries. Based on the empirical findings, the policymakers and governments of these economies should design policies to grow smarter cities, transportation systems, electrical grids, industrial processes, and energy-saving production through ICT development on a macro level.
目前，信息和通信技术（ICT）在社会经济发展中发挥了至关重要的作用，例如经济增长、识字率、预期寿命和就业水平，但这种发展也带来了各种环境破坏方面的问题。本研究考察了 ICT、经济增长和外国直接投资（FDI）对 1991 年至 2019 年间 44 个“一带一路”倡议（OBRI）国家的二氧化碳（CO）排放的影响。本研究采用了各种计量经济学方法，如横截面相关性、第二代单位根和 Westerlund 面板协整技术，对面板数据集进行分析。应用全修正普通最小二乘法和动态普通最小二乘法估计器来研究 ICT 发展、GDP（经济增长）和 FDI 对 CO 排放的长期影响。在离散化水平上进行实证分析，以评估 OBRI 国家可能存在的环境影响。总体而言，结果表明宽带和移动发展对 CO 排放有不利影响。这一发现进一步表明，宽带指标除了对南亚之外的所有 OBRI 地区都对 CO 排放产生负面影响。同样，移动使用指标在除中东和北非（MENA）和中亚之外的所有 OBRI 地区都保护了环境质量。就国家层面的分析而言，宽带减轻了 21 个国家的污染水平，而移动减轻了 15 个国家的污染水平。此外，经济增长除了欧洲以外的所有面板和地区都增加了污染水平。此外，结果还强调，更高的 FDI 降低了环境污染水平，支持了污染光环假说在除 MENA 国家之外的所有 OBRI 面板和地区的成立。基于实证结果，这些经济体的政策制定者和政府应该在宏观层面上制定政策，通过 ICT 发展来促进智慧城市、交通系统、电网、工业流程和节能生产的发展。
