The unavoidable negative effects of global warming have been a key if not the most important issue occupying policy makers in the world at large today. The much talked about green economy nowadays seeks to achieve sustainable economic growth and development without compromising environmental quality. The relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth is largely explained by the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. By employing the basic postulation of the baseline EKC framework, this study proposes and tests the existence of a dualistic approach of the EKC hypothesis. Geometry is used to illustrate the proposed dualistic model. Meanwhile, the novel dynamic common correlation effect econometric technique is employed to test the existence of the dualistic EKC within a panel of 109 countries from 1995 to 2016. The outcome from the estimated models shows that, in the global sample, the existence of the dualistic U-shaped and N-shaped EKC hypothesis is validated. When the sample is split into subsamples based on income levels, the U-shaped EKC hypothesis is validated for lower-income and high-income economies meanwhile, the N-shaped dualistic EKC is mostly associated with high-income economies.

This paper investigates the short-and long-run effects of external debt and foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestic investment in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from 1990 to 2017. We employ the pooled mean group ARDL technique and panel Granger causality test to attain the objectives of the study. The result indicates that FDI exerts a positive and statistically significant effect on domestic investment in the short run whereas external debt has an insignificant negative effect. In the long run, the result shows that external debt and FDI have a crowding out effect on domestic investment in SSA. Equally, a circular unidirectional link is found among the variables from domestic investment to FDI, FDI to external debt, and from external debt to domestic investment. We recommend that SSA countries should channel external debt to productive sectors like road infrastructures and energy, control corruption and improve the business environment to attract both domestic and foreign investors.

This study empirically investigates the effects of trade, foreign direct investment, and growth on environmental quality and sustainability. In order to attain the objective of the study, we adopt the novel dynamic common correlation effect technique that accounts for cross-sectional dependence. A panel of 109 countries from 1995 to 2016 was used for the study, based on availability of data. The results indicated that economic growth, trade openness, and FDI generally degrade the environment quality, while control variables like population and human development are environmentally friendly. Income-level disparity is equally noticed with the division of the panel into low-income, lower middle-income, and upper middle-income and highincome countries. For sustainability, only human development is seen to be exerting a positive effect on ecological overshoot. The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is equally validated for the global sample and for each income level but more significant in lower middle-income countries. The results indicate that efforts to improve the quality of the environment and sustain Mother Nature need to be encouraged. There is need to introduce abatement policies for firms, encourage renewable energy consumption, discourage investment in fossil fuel, implement the Common Agricultural policy, and adopt trade policy with legislation on minimum pollution within all countries.

Purpose The continuous increase in the negative gap between biocapacity and ecological footprint has remained globally persistent since early 1970. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of foreign capital, domestic capital formation, institutional quality and democracy on ecological footprint within a global panel of 101 countries from 1995 to 2017. Design/methodology/approach The empirical procedure is based on data mix. To this end, this study uses a battery of testing and estimation approaches both conventional (no cross-sectional dependence [CD]) and novel approaches (accounting for CD). Among the battery of estimation techniques used, there are the dynamic ordinary least square, the mean group, the common correlation effect mean group technique, the augmented mean group technique, the Pooled mean group and the dynamic common correlation effect technique with the desire to obtain outcomes robust to heteroskedasticity, endogeneity, cross-correlation and CD among others. Findings The estimated outcomes indicate that using different estimators’ domestic capital formation consistently degrades the environment through an increase in ecological footprint, while institutional quality consistently enhances the quality of the environment. Further, the outcome reveals that, though foreign capital inflow degrades the environment, the time period is essential, as it shows a short-run environmental improvement and a long-run environmental degradation. Democratic activities show a mixed outcome with short-run degrading effect and a long-run enhancement effect on environmental quality. Practical implications Green investment should be the policy target of all economies, and these policies should be adopted to target both domestic capital and foreign capital alike. Second, the adoption of democratic practices will produce good leaders that will not just design short-term policies to blindfold the populace temporary but those that will produce long-term-oriented practices that will better and enhance the quality of the environment through the reduction of the global footprint. Equally, enhancing the institutional framework like respect for the rule of law in matters of abatement should be encouraged. Originality/value Although much research on the role of macroeconomic indicators on environmental quality has been done this far, democratic practices, intuitional quality and domestic capital have been given little attention. This research fills this gap by considering robust empirical techniques.

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