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This paper has examined the short-run and long-run relationships between economic growth, energy consumption, foreign direct investment, trade openness, financial development, corruption, urban population and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions in three developing countries of ASEAN, i.e., Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines (ASEAN-3), with data from 1970 to 2017. Special emphasis has been given to the level of corruption in these three countries as several recent media releases have reported that many firms have been conducting unlawful activities by importing large amounts of waste from developed countries and these wastes, including plastic waste, have been burnt in open spaces and have caused higher releases of carbon emissions. Long-run elasticity results have proven that the higher level of corruption in these three ASEAN countries has caused more environmental pollution. Meanwhile, other tested variables have shown mixed findings across the three tested countries. Improvement of institutional quality is urgently needed for ASEAN-3 countries by adopting more transparent laws and the imposition of heavier penalties on corrupt officials and even on the entrepreneurs who have engaged in unlawful business activities that have caused higher environmental pollution.

A rise in the ageing population is the current demographic challenge which is capable of pressuring the government to borrow more external funds in order to support domestic needs. This study aims to investigate the effects of the external debt of 36 upper-middle-income economies from 2000 to 2017 due to the increase in the ageing population. This study employed the system Generalised Method of Moments (GMM), where it revealed that the ageing population could increase the level of external debt if the population aged 65 and above was used as a proxy to represent the ageing population. However, the results were insignificant when the proxy was changed to the old-age dependency ratio. It illustrated that the increase in external debt occurs due to the increase in the population aged 65 and above because the government has to allocate more funds for healthcare, age-friendly infrastructure, social security and pensions. However, the dependency of the older people on government is minimal because of their long-term savings. Hence, the old-age dependency ratio has an insignificant relationship with the external debt level. For future research, it is suggested that the impact of the ageing population can be investigated on the domestic debt level.

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