Life Expectancy at Birth in Europe: An Econometric Approach Based on Random Forests Methodology

The determinants of life expectancy and environmental degradation in Pakistan: evidence from ARDL bounds test approach

The current study aims to investigate factors affecting life expectancy in Pakistan with a special focus on environmental degradation measured by carbon emissions (CO₂ emissions) on life expectancy from 1975 to 2020. The unit root test results show mixed order integration in the series. The bound F-test and Johansen cointegration test confirm the long-run association between the variables. The long-run estimates of autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) reveal that CO₂ emissions, inflation rate, food production index, and death rate have negative effects on the life expectancy, implying that life expectancy shorten when CO₂ increases, while per capita income, urbanization, population growth, birth rate, health expenditure, and education have positive effects on life expectancy, indicating that these factors prolong life expectancy. Moreover, the short-run estimates of ARDL reveal that food production index, urbanization, birth rate, infant mortality rate, and education have positive effects on the life expectancy, while inflation, per capita income, population growth rate, death rate, health expenditure, and CO₂ emissions have negative effects on the life expectancy. The findings of the study suggest that the management authorities need to regulate carbon emissions in order to prolong life expectancy which is a key determinant of the economic growth.

Heterogeneous effect of GHG emissions and fossil energy on well-being and income in emerging economies: a critical appraisal of the role of environmental stringency and green energy

The new Agenda 2030 for sustainable development call for initiatives to bridge the gap between environmental protection and socio-economic development. To provide insight on the relationship between socio-economics, and ecology, the current study examines the effectiveness of environmental stringency and green energy to mitigate the effects of fossil energy and greenhouse gas emissions on human well-being and income for 12 emerging economies. The outcomes from dynamic heterogeneous panel estimators of cross-sectional-based auto regressive distributed lag and cross-sectional-augmented distributed lag indicate that: (i) green energy consumption and electricity consumption have a substantial positive effect on well-being and per capita income. (ii) The stringent environmental policy is found to decrease per capita income, but it increases well-being, while the square of environmental stringency is found to increase per capita income. (iii) Fossil energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions have a negative effect on well-being but a positive impact on income. The outcome of U-test confirmed the presence of a U-shaped curve with a turning point (0.433) between per capita income and environmental policy stringency. This study yielded consistent results from the panel Granger causality test. Based on our findings, we may argue that it is necessary to prioritize human well-being over economic growth, and suggest several policy implications to achieve sustainable development goals.

The Relative Importance of Globalization and Public Expenditure on Life Expectancy in Europe: An Approach Based on MARS Methodology

BACKGROUND

There has been a widespread debate about the overall impact of globalization on population, not just economically, but also in terms of health status. Moreover, the current health crisis is going to force governments to review the structure of the public budget to most effectively alleviate the negative economic and health effects on the population.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relative importance of globalization and the public budget composition-specifically the participation of public expenditure on healthcare, social services and environment in gross domestic product (GDP)-on life expectancy at birth in European countries during the period 1995-2017.

METHODS

The Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) methodology was applied to analyze the socioeconomic determinants of life expectancy at birth.

RESULTS

Our findings show that globalization has no relative importance as an explanatory variable of life expectancy in European countries, while government expenditure on social protection is the most relevant followed by public expenditure on health, gross national income per capita, education level of the population and public expenditure on environmental protection.

CONCLUSION

European strategies intended to impact on health outcome should spend more attention to the composition of public budget.