No abstract

The high pace of economic growth has posed many challenges. These challenges include depletion of natural resources, globalization challenges, and environmental degradation. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) economies are rich in mineral resources. Economic globalization has put the MENA countries in the spotlight for the developed world. Despite the status of being a hotspot for mineral resource richness, there is limited research on the effect of natural resources and economic globalization on the environmental degradation of the MENA countries. This paper examines the effects of natural resource abundance and economic globalization on environmental quality by considering trade openness, urbanization, and economic growth from the year 1980 to 2018. We apply second-generation panel cointegration techniques along with continuously updated fully modified (Cup-FM) and continuously updated bias-corrected (Cup-BC) techniques. The findings show that natural resource abundance significantly improves environmental quality. Likewise, economic globalization also mitigates emissions levels in the MENA countries. In contrast, trade openness, urbanization, and economic growth significantly deteriorate environmental quality. The unidirectional link indicates natural resources and economic globalization create trade openness. The paper provides novel empirical evidence and policy recommendations for sustainable development goals.

No abstract

This paper explores the relationship among trade openness, economic growth and poverty level in 40 sub-Saharan Africa countries from 1990 to 2017. Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, Panel Vector Auto-regression (VAR) and the System of Generalised Method of Moments (SYS-GMM) were employed. A robustness test was also applied. The sensitivity analysis was done through the Panel ARDL model. The results revealed that trade openness, foreign direct investment and institutional quality significantly increase economic growth in the long term, while institutional quality reduces economic growth in the short run. Furthermore, trade liberalisation, institutional quality and population growth rate lead to poverty reduction in the long run, while trade openness has adverse effects in the short run. Moreover, poverty does not have a significant response to trade and growth shocks. Poverty presented a positive change but the level was not significant. The Pairwise Dumitrescu Hurlin Panel Causality results highlight feedback effects among trade, economic growth and poverty level in the region. Based on these findings, the study recommends that governments in Africa should reviewed their poverty reduction programmes in order to move towards achieving the sustainable development goals.

This paper investigates the relationship among income inequality, carbon emissions rate, and economic growth in Burkina Faso and Nigeria in the period 1980-2016.Using the ARDL bounds approach to ascertain the short-and long-run dynamics of the variables, the paper examined whether or not income inequality, poverty, and growth affected environmental quality in both countries. Findings indicated a U-shaped inverted connection between environmental degradation and income growth in Nigeria while the U-shaped relationship was found in Burkina Faso. The relationship between income inequality and environmental degradation in both countries was positive while government expenditure and poverty were found to increasing carbon emissions in the long-run, only in Nigeria. The short-run results showed that income inequality reduced carbon dioxide emissions in Nigeria and had significant and adverse effects in Burkina Faso. Consequently, policymakers must pay equal attention to income inequality and poverty alleviation on the one hand and cleaning the environment and economic growth on the other hand. | INTRODUCTIONSustainable development has three major facets: social, environmental, and economic. To achieve long-term growth and economic development, countries must ensure that the three dimensions operate together. Accordingly, in their quest for advancement, African countries such as Nigeria and Burkina Faso have been aiming to commit to the goal of sustainable development. As such, they appear to have embraced globalization, which encourages trade liberalization and eliminates trade barriers in a bid to achieve increased economic growth that manifests as higher employment rates, equal distribution of wealth, and poverty eradication in the society (MacDonald & Majeed, 2011). As noted by Hassan, Zaman, and Gul (2015), these aggregates, alongside population growth, energy