Unemployment rate, clean energy, and ecological footprint in OECD countries

Abstract

OECD countries have encountered the challenges of improving the environmental sustainability while maintaining economic growth by not impairing employment. Designing green policies with the consideration of clean energy is claimed to resolve the mentioned challenges. This study attempts to reexamine the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis by using ecological footprint as an indicator of environmental degradation. Besides, our study aims to test the validity of environmental Phillips curve and role of clean energy on ecological footprint. Our data cover a panel of 36 OECD countries from 1995-2015. We adopt the second generation panel unit root and cointegration test to account for the presence of cross section dependence (CSD). Moreover, the long-run relationship is estimated using Common Correlated Effect Mean Group (CCEMG) and Augmented Mean Group (AMG) that are robust to CSD. Our results are able to provide valuable insights for environmental policy recommendations in OECD countries.

The role of GICT and environmental regulation in affecting ecological footprint

“…This result thus indicates these EFs support the EKC hypothesis and are consistent with the theoretical expectation that argues GICT leads to environmental sustainability. Generally, our UMP nding is similar to Ng et al (2022) in that a negative relationship exists between UMP and environmental degradation. In sum, the GICTinduced EKC hypothesis partially supports H2, whereby GICT has an inverted U-shape link with EF.…”

“…Our negative impact nding on IND is also different from Saud et al (2020) that IND spurs resource consumption and environmental deterioration. Our UMP nding is similar toNg et al (2022) for the existence of a negative association between UMP and environmental degradation. In sum, the GICT-induced EKC hypothesis partially supports H3 that GICT has an inverted U-shape link with EF.…”

Does Environmental Quality React Asymmetrically to Unemployment and Inflation Rates? African OPEC countries' perspective

“…They coined the term "environmental Phillips curve" to describe the inverse relationship between the two indicators. This curve is reexamined for BRICST economies by Anser et al (2021) and for OECD countries by Ng et al (2022). They confirm the EPC by demonstrating a significant trade-off between unemployment and environmental damage.…”

The Impact of Economic Growth, Population, and Energy Consumption on Environmental Degradation: Evidence from OECD Countries

“…Although some research (Awan et al, 2020;Churchill et al, 2018;Esteve & Tamarit, 2012;Shahbaz et al, 2013;Xie et al, 2022) have supported the EKC hypothesis, there are studies (Al Sayed & Sek, 2013;Islam et al, 2022;Ng et al, 2022;Özokcu & Özdemir, 2017) that do not prove it. According to these studies, the relationship between the environment and economic growth has other trends like a monotonically increasing trend (Bagliani et al, 2008), U-shaped (Wang et al, 2011), N-shaped (Lorente & Álvarez-Herranz, 2016;Poudel et al, 2009), and inverted-N-shaped patterns (Özokcu & Özdemir, 2017).…”

“…In addition, different OECD countries may even show different behaviors in the field of environmental degradation. This may be because some of them, which are low globalized, still need to be equipped with advanced technologies (Ng et al, 2022). Therefore, although it is common to examine the behavior of countries in the field of panel data analysis, because there may be countries whose behavior is ultimately different from the behavior shown by the panel data analysis, there is a need for an individual analysis of countries.…”