Role of economic growth and innovative technologies in the outlook of energy and environmental efficiency: a way forward for developing Asian economies

Unveiling the liaison between financial development dimensions, energy efficiency and ecological footprint in the context of institutional frameworks: evidence from the Emerging-7 economies

Financial development and energy efficiency can facilitate the transition towards a more environmentally sustainable and responsible economy. Simultaneously, the importance of institutional effectiveness cannot undermine the need to manage financial and energy consumption activities. To this end, the primary objective of this study is to examine the effects of financial development and energy efficiency on the ecological footprint of the Emerging-7 economies from 2000 to 2019. The study specifically focuses on the influence of these factors within the context of robust institutional mechanisms. We employ the STIRPAT (Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology) model as the analytical framework to accomplish this. This study takes into consideration three aspects of financial development, which are: (i) the depth of financial development, (ii) the stability of financial development, and (iii) the efficiency of financial development. In addition, this study has developed an institutional index using principal component analysis. The index comprises several crucial indicators: Control of Corruption, Government Effectiveness, Political Stability, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Voice and Accountability. The study raises the importance of energy efficiency in terms of energy intensity on ecological footprint. The study's findings suggest that without robust institutional mechanisms, the potential of financial development depth, stability, and efficiency to improve ecological well-being may not be fully realized. However, the study concludes that these institutional mechanisms positively impact mitigating the ecological footprint.

An empirical assessment of the tripartite nexus between environmental pollution, economic growth, and agricultural production in Sub-Saharan African countries

A lot of attention has been paid to environmental pollution worldwide, due to the increase in anthropogenic activities. Massive investment in non-renewable energy options raises questions regarding environmental sustainability and how to maximize food and non-food output while still preserving a healthy ecosystem. To this end, the present study explores the three-way nexus between economic growth, CO₂ emission, and agriculture-value added will accounting for other control variables across a balanced panel of selected African economies from 1997 to 2020. Panel econometrics method of the generalized method of moments (two-step difference GMM) is used to obtain a robust result. From the present study, the environmental pollution model shows that economic growth significantly contributes to environmental pollution in Africa. Additionally, the food price index, capital, and FDI promote pollution, while agricultural production and labor decrease pollution. In the case of the economic growth model, the findings reveal that environmental pollution supports the growth-led pollution hypothesis. Also, the food price index and capital ameliorate economic growth, while foreign direct investments decrease economic growth. Finally, the agricultural production model indicates that economic growth increases agricultural production when the interaction term between GDPC and FDI is included in the model. In summary, the combination of explanatory variables, environmental pollution, capital, and foreign direct investment decreases agricultural production. On the contrary, the food price index and labor promote agricultural production in Africa. Furthermore, the study provides a lot of policies for authorities and stakeholders in Sub-Saharan African countries and other developing economies.

Research on the impact mechanism of environmental regulation on green total factor productivity from the perspective of innovative human capital

Green total factor productivity (GTFP) improvement is an important way to achieve sustainable development, and how to improve GTFP has become the focus of attention of governments and scholars. This paper constructs a GTFP evaluation index system to characterize social, economic, ecological, cultural, and politically sustainable development, and analyzes the impact of environmental regulations on GTFP in the context of increasing innovative labor force. The results of the study are as follows: Firstly, China's GTFP continues to improve, with a decrease in low-value provinces and an increase in high-value provinces; there is an agglomeration effect of GTFP in the eastern and western regions. Secondly, under the role of innovative human capital, the threshold effect of China and the eastern and western regions is significantly positive in the first stage and insignificant in the second stage. The threshold effect of the central region is not significant in the first stage, but significantly negative in the second stage (- 11.650); the effect of environmental regulation in the eastern region is the strongest. Thirdly, the control variables in the upper period GTFP, national and eastern R&D investment, level of foreign openness, local fiscal expenditure, central and western information construction, western tertiary industry development, urbanization, foreign direct investment, level of foreign openness, and local fiscal expenditure can increase GTFP. In this regard, the government should adhere to innovative talent cultivation and investment in science and technology to build a talent ecological environment for regional sustainable development, adjust environmental regulations in time to meet the demand for sustainable development to realize the GTFP regional linkage enhancement.

Does the construction of innovative cities promote urban green innovation?

As a typical example of an innovative governance environment, innovative city has become the focus of political and academic circles. Discussing the green innovation effect of this policy is beneficial in providing decision support for enhancing urban green innovation capability and solving the dilemma of urban resources. Based on data from 241 cities in China from 2005 to 2017, this paper takes innovative city construction as a "quasi-natural experiment" and uses the difference-in-differences method to empirically study the impact of China's innovative city construction on urban green innovation. The results show that innovative urban construction: has a positive effect on improving urban green innovation, and that this effect will gradually increase with time; promotes urban green innovation by expanding the scope of technology application, improving the efficiency of resource allocation and promoting the adjustment of industrial structure; and presents heterogeneity in cities' location, size and hierarchy. Finally, this paper proposes that the government should promote innovative policies in an orderly manner on the basis of following the principle of adapting measures to local conditions, as well as incorporating green innovation performance into the evaluation system for innovative city construction.

Transmission Channels and Impacts of Energy Use on Health Outcomes in Asia

Today, the developing economies continue to tackle the penalties of the energy use and its influence on their environmental and socio-economic prosperity, and the developed economies are concentrating on promoting programs and policies to improve and sustain the endowment of adequate energy consumption that pledges less carbon emissions and threats to human health. Currently, millions of people face a dearth of access to reliable, affordable, and clean energy to fulfill their daily requirements. Thus, the mounting need for energy use portends hazardous consequences on human health. This paper investigates the transmission channels and impact of energy consumption on health outcomes in Asia by adopting a panel of selected Asian economies for the period from 1991 and 2019. The findings of the study show that energy causes a rise in infant mortality rate and a reduction in life expectancy. Furthermore, the study found that a high degree of pollution emissions causes a rise in infant mortality and a decline in life expectancy.