Reviewing Trade Openness, Domestic Investment, and Economic Growth Nexus: Contemporary Policy Implications for the MENA region

et al. 2022

Energy & Environment

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In view of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals on clean and responsible energy consumption, climate change mitigation, and sustainable economic growth (UN-SDGs-7, 11–13), this study examines institutional quality (IQ)–carbon emissions nexus in the framework of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Six dimensions of IQ from the World Governance Indicators (WGIs) were used while focusing on Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries between 1996 and 2019. After controlling for growth, energy use, and industrialization levels, the empirical results validated the EKC hypothesis for the SSA as a unit increase in economic growth initially worsens the environment while further economic expansion eventually improves the environment. However, mixed results were obtained on the effects of IQ indicators. CO2 emissions are only substantially reduced by corruption control, regulatory quality, and the rule of law among other IQ measures. Furthermore, the causality analysis showed a unidirectional causality between growth and environmentally detrimental energy consumption levels coupled with a two-way emission-population growth causality flow as well as a two-way emissions—IQ causality channel. While economic growth, energy use, and industrialization levels undermine environmental sustainability in the SSA region via increased carbon emissions, the overall findings signal the moderating roles of IQ. Hence, the strengthening of institutions is recommended for environmental sustainability enhancement in the SSA region.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating institutional quality and carbon mitigation drive in Sub-Saharan Africa: Are growth levels, energy use, population, and industrialization consequential factors?

Appiah

et al. 2022

Energy & Environment

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“…Overall, it can be deduced that these countries have enjoyed the benefits of globalization as it is often seen as a major tool for fostering economic integration and redistribution of scarce resources across international boundaries to meet certain human needs including energy demands among others. Besides, it has been observed that the trends of globalization reveal how the world economies are interdependent and interconnected especially through trade and foreign direct investment which cut across both advanced and emerging economies (Balcilar et al 2023 ; Yussif et al 2022 ; Adebayo et al 2022 ; Khatir et al 2022 ; Dingru et al 2023 ). We utilized the KOF Globalization index of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute in this research.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of alternative energy and globalization in decarbonization prospects of the oil-producing African economies

Erdoğan

Alola

2023

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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This study assesses the environmental impacts of the energy mix of mainly oil-producing African nations. The economic aspects of decarbonization prospects were also viewed from the perspectives of fossil energy dependence among the countries. More insights on the impacts of energy mix on decarbonization prospects were also provided on a country-specific analysis basis via the application of second-generation econometric techniques in assessing carbon emission levels across the countries between 1990 and 2015. From the results, only renewable resources proved to be a significant decarbonization tool among the understudied oil-rich economies. Moreover, the consequences of the trio of fossil fuel consumption, income growth, and globalization are diametrically opposed to achieving decarbonization as the rise in their usage significantly acts as pollutant-inducing tools. The validity of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) conjecture was also upheld for the combined analysis of the panel countries. The study thus opined that the reduction in conventional energy dependence will enhance environmental quality. Consequently, given the advantages of the geographical locations of these countries in Africa, concerted strategies for more investment in clean renewable energy sources like solar and wind were suggested to policymakers among other recommendations.

“…In Equation (5), the null hypothesis of the absence of causality among variables would be examined against the alternative hypothesis of heterogeneous causality among variables in the framework of a balance panel observation for the understudied variables. Causality analysis in empirical studies of this kind has been widely reported in extant studies (Baloch et al, 2021; Çevik et al, 2020; Çoban et al, 2020; Godil et al, 2021; Khatir et al, 2022). The result of the analysis is detailed in the discussion section.…”

Section: Empirical Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do natural resources and economic components exhibit differential quantile environmental effects?

Natural Resources Forum

Haouas

Alola

2023

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In view of the resource curse assumption, the environmental aspects of resource utilization are arguably posing more dangers to human existence. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the region that holds more than 60% and 50% of the world's oil and gas reserves respectively, the need to examine the contribution of natural resources to environmental quality among other factors cannot be overemphasized. By leveraging on the novelty of observing the differential impact of natural resources and other economic components such as income and primary energy utilizations across the quantiles of carbon emission, this study implements the quantile regression approach alongside other relevant techniques to analyze data between 1990 and 2018 for selected countries in the MENA region including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Algeria, Morocco, Oman, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The result posits that natural resource utilization generally hampers the environment across the quantiles. However, this negative effect decreases until the 50th quantile before starting to rise again toward the upper quantiles. Additionally, primary energy utilization and globalization respectively worsen and improve environmental quantile, especially toward the upper quantiles while income affirms the inverted U‐shaped hypothesis across the entire quantiles. Moreover, there is a statistically significant one‐way directional causality from natural resources, economic expansion, primary energy use, and globalization to carbon emission levels. Hence, the study offers environmentally friendly resource utilization policies to the MENA economies and other resource‐rich states by extension.