Does an environmental stringent policy really matter to achieve environmental sustainability in BRICS-T region? Evidence from novel method of moments quantile regression approach.

Amidst pressing global environmental challenges, exacerbated by climate change and the imminent threat of global warming, there is a critical need to assess the efficacy of environmental policies. This study centers its attention on the pivotal role of these policies in addressing environmental concerns. Specifically, our research aims to scrutinize the impact of stringent environmental policies on environmental quality under the theoretical underpinnings of environmental Kuznets curve. To achieve this objective, the study collected data from BRICS-T economies over the period of 1990-2020. This study employed the method of moments quantile regression technique for empirical analysis. Our study validates the presence of the Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC hypothesis). Empirical findings reveal the sustained significance of environmental stringency across all quantiles, demonstrating a positive correlation in lower quantiles and a negative correlation in higher quantiles. At lower quantiles, the impact is insignificant initially, but pronounced due to efficiency improvements induced by stringent policies. The effects became negative at middle quantiles, indicating stringent policies might encounter diminishing returns where policy measures start stabilizing ecological impacts. At higher quantiles, the influence of ESI remains significant, reflecting ongoing adaptations in larger economies with higher ecological footprints. This suggests the potential effectiveness of stringent regulatory measures in mitigating environmental impacts and reducing ecological footprints. The identified inverted U-shaped curve signifies that while stringent policies may not inherently enhance environmental health, beyond a certain threshold, they can indeed contribute to its improvement. Our policy recommendation advocates for the widespread adoption and promotion of such stringent measures to safeguard environmental health.

Exploring the impact of energy consumption on poverty in Pakistan: evidence from the asymmetric ARDL approach.

This research work contributes to the literature by examining the role of energy consumption in mitigating poverty via decomposing energy consumption into its positive and negative components, covering the period spanning from 1985 to 2017. To accomplish this objective, this study employs the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach recently popularized by Shin et al., (2014). The NARDL approach is well-suited to our study becuase of its capability to delineate hidden asymmetries. The empirical findings reveal the prevalence of long-run associations among the studied variables. The outcomes show that an increase (decrease) in energy consumption combats (augments) poverty in Pakistan. The empirical findings underscore that the decreasing effect of energy consumption on poverty is found to be more promising than its increasing effect, both in the long and short run. Based on the empirical outcomes, we suggest that the policymakers, and other stakeholders should consider the asymmetric or nonlinear behavior of the studied variables for better poverty policy-making in Pakistan.

Asymmetric relationship of environmental degradation and economic growth with tourism demand in Pakistan: evidence from non-linear ARDL and causality estimation.

The purpose of this study is to assess the asymmetric associations of environmental degradation and economic growth with Pakistan's tourism demand. To fulfil this purpose, "non-linear autoregressive distributed lag" (NARDL) modelling was performed on the time series data collected from Pakistan for 26 years. The unit root test, co-integration test, long-run estimation and NARDL estimations were applied to the data to generate findings. The present study revealed that there exist the significant asymmetric associations between environmental degradation and tourism demand. It has also indicated that there exist the significant asymmetric associations between economic growth and tourism demand. It is found through the non-linear ARDL estimation results that the increase or decrease in economic growth leads towards the increase of the tourism demand of Pakistan. It means that any change (either positive or negative) in economic growth is followed by the increase of the tourism demand. Results further indicate that the increase in environmental degradation in Pakistan causes its tourism demand to reduce while the negative change in the environmental degradation does not cause any significant effect on tourism demand. However, this relationship becomes significant in the long run as the negative change in environmental degradation caused significant inverse effect on tourism demand in long run. The current study tends to be theoretically significant and practically beneficial for Pakistan's policymakers. It will help them realize the role of economic growth of the country and environmental degradation in shaping Pakistan's tourism demand and thus help them develop and implement better policies for the growth of the tourism sector.