Role of Technological Innovation in Achieving Social and Environmental Sustainability: Mediating Roles of Organizational Innovation and Digital Entrepreneurship

Environmental policy stringency, ICT, and technological innovation for achieving sustainable development: Assessing the importance of governance and infrastructure

Achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) has garnered significant attention from academia and policymakers worldwide. In this study, we examine the impact of ICT, technological innovation (TI), and environmental policy stringency (EPS) on SDI, considering the moderating role of governance quality (GQI) and transport infrastructure (TIS). A comprehensive dataset of 17 advanced nations is utilized from 1996 to 2021. To capture the dynamic and extreme marginal impacts of these policy instruments on SDG attainment, we employ the advanced technique of Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS). The results demonstrate that ICT has a positive and significant effect on SDGs, particularly when combined with high levels of governance quality (GOV) and transport infrastructure (TIS). Likewise, TI has a positive impact on SDGs, especially in the presence of strong governance. Furthermore, EPS exhibits a positive association with SDGs. The findings also reveal that while governance hurts SDGs, this effect diminishes when combined with higher levels of ICT, TI, and EPS, and when TIS positively moderates the relationships. The robustness estimations using DOLS and PCSE methods validate the FGLS findings. These results underscore the importance of ICT, TI, and EPS in advancing sustainable development. Moreover, they highlight the significance of good governance and robust transport infrastructure in maximizing the positive effects of these factors. These findings hold implications for policymakers and stakeholders involved in promoting sustainable development.

The impact of technological innovation and financial development on environmental pollution in gulf cooperation council - A linear and nonlinear ARDL approach

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are highly vulnerable to climate change, including rising sea levels, extreme weather, and other environmental and social issues. GCC countries showed remarkable economic growth and development. However, this growth and development put severe pressure on the environment, leading to the degradation of the Environment. Therefore, it is essential to investigate essential factors of environmental degradation, such as technological innovation and financial development. However, per capita income and energy consumption are also crucial factors of environmental degradation. Henceforth, the study carried out panel data from 2001 to 2019 to examine the influence of technological innovation, financial development, energy consumption, and per capita income on environmental degradation in GCC. After conducting necessary preliminary tests, the study employed a symmetric and asymmetric ARDL approach to quantify the numerical estimates. Both symmetric and asymmetric models show that technological innovation reduces environmental degradation, while energy consumption, per capita, and financial development expedite the ecological deterioration in GCC. The Wald tests demonstrate the asymmetric relationship between technological innovation, energy consumption, financial development, and environmental degradation. However, the study fails to find a significant asymmetric relationship between per capita and ecological degradation. The recommendations are added in the recommendation part of the paper.

Haze pollution reduction in Chinese cities: Has digital financial development played a role?

Based on the exogenous shock of digital financial development in China in 2013, a difference-in-differences (DID) model is set up in this paper to investigate the causal relationship between digital financial development and haze pollution reduction. The finding of the paper is that a one standard deviation increase in digital finance after 2013 decreases the PM2.5 concentrations by 0.2708 standard deviations. After a number of robustness checks, like placebo tests, instrumental variable (IV) estimations, eliminating disruptive policies, and using alternative specifications, this causal effect is not challenged. In addition, this paper explores three potential mechanisms of digital finance to reduce haze pollution: technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and green development. Moreover, the heterogeneous effects signify that the usage depth of digital finance works best in haze pollution reduction. Digital finance has more positive effects in cities in the north and those with superior Internet infrastructure and higher levels of traditional financial development. However, the quantile regression estimates suggest that for cities with light or very serious haze pollution, the positive impact of digital finance is limited. These findings supplement the research field on the environmental benefits of digital finance, which provides insights for better public policies about digital financial development to achieve haze pollution reduction.