A bibliometric review analysis into environmental kuznets curve phenomenon: A retrospect and future direction.

The present study presents a retrospect into environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis (EKC). The EKC debate is dated over four decade long and worthy of empirical scrutiny. To this end, the present study leverages on over 200 previous studies curated from SCOPUS and Web of science (WOS) core collection database respectively. The present study also presented both literature schematic on the evolution, trends, gaps, and future directions on the EKC debate. This paper endeavors to enhance our comprehension of the inherent paradoxes present in sustainability discourses by delving into the fundamental assumptions underlying the Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). By conducting a bibliometric analysis, we aim to shed light on the factors contributing to the prominence of thematic keywords within sustainability discourses. This study seeks to provide valuable insights into these dynamics and implications on sustainability debates. Key empirical findings outlines predominant and influential studies and journal outlets on the theme under consideration. The present study bibliometric analysis displays that Ozturk i. with 13 published papers 3153 citations and a link strength of 2, Dogan e. Had 7 papers with 2190 citations with no link strength, Shahbaz. B 7 papers 1347 citations and 1 link strength, Saboori b.7 papers 677 citations 1 strength link and Liu y. 6 papers 582 citations with no link strength. From a policy dimension, the present bibliometric study presents valuable depth on the evolution and development of the EKC phenomenon by identifying's the extant literature leaders, action-step for future studies on environmental sustainability without compromise on economic growth as the EKC theme express the tradeoff between economic growth and environmental degradation. Further insights are rendered in the concluding section.

COVID-19 pandemic and economic policy uncertainty: The first test on the hedging and safe haven properties of cryptocurrencies.

This study examines the role of the top-5 cryptocurrencies and gold as a hedge and safe haven against the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) before and during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. We use the GARCH model for the main analysis and a safe haven index (SHI) for robustness. Our findings show that gold and cryptocurrencies cannot act as a strong hedge or safe haven against EPU before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we find that the SHI exhibits negative returns and increased volatility during the COVID-19 and confirms that cryptocurrencies generally act as weak safe haven. Gold is classified as a weak safe haven asset during the whole period and more likely as a safe asset before the health crisis but loses its safe haven property during the COVID-19 crisis. Our findings provide useful information for investors interested in the cryptocurrency market and safe haven assets when building assets portfolios.

Analyzing the Nexus Between Geopolitical Risk, Policy Uncertainty, and Tourist Arrivals: Evidence From the United States.

This study attempts to explore the causal linkage of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic policy uncertainty, geopolitical risk, and tourism arrivals in the United States taking data from January to November 2020. In order to analyze the above relationship, this study uses a novel time-varying granger causality test developed by Shi et al. (2018), which incorporates its three causality algorithms such as forward recursive causality, rolling causality, and recursive evolving causality. The findings from forward recursive causality could not confirm any significant causal relationship between COVID-19 and tourism, geopolitical risk (GPR) and tourism, economic policy uncertainty and tourism, and geopolitical risk and COVID-19 but found causality between economic policy uncertainty and COVID-19. The rolling window causality reported bidirectional causality between COVID-19 and tourism and unidirectional causality running from tourism to geopolitical risk. However, the recursive evolving causality identified a significant bidirectional causal relationship between all the variables. Based on the findings, policy implications for the tourism sector are provided.

The impact of electricity prices and supply on attracting FDI to South Africa.

Inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plays an important role on the overall economic conditions of host countries, particularly the ones that are still in low developmental stages. South Africa (SA) as an example of this group of countries has also experienced intermittent electricity supply and increasing electricity tariffs since 2008. As the literature suggests that attracting FDI depends on the conditions of the host country, the main purpose of this study is to examine the impact that electricity prices and supply, as representatives of the energy conditions of SA as a host country, had to the attractiveness of FDI to SA. To do so, this study uses the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration approach for the period 1985 to 2018. The findings of the study indicated that indeed the initial hypotheses have been confirmed: (1) electricity supply is a positive contributor to inward FDI, ceteris paribus, and (2) electricity prices are a negative contributor to inward FDI, ceteris paribus.

Dynamic connectedness between stock markets in the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic: does economic policy uncertainty matter?

This study investigates the dynamic connectedness between stock indices and the effect of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) in eight countries where COVID-19 was most widespread (China, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, the US, and the UK) by implementing the time-varying VAR (TVP-VAR) model for daily data over the period spanning from 01/01/2015 to 05/18/2020. Results showed that stock markets were highly connected during the entire period, but the dynamic spillovers reached unprecedented heights during the COVID-19 pandemic in the first quarter of 2020. Moreover, we found that the European stock markets (except Italy) transmitted more spillovers to all other stock markets than they received, primarily during the COVID-19 outbreak. Further analysis using a nonlinear framework showed that the dynamic connectedness was more pronounced for negative than for positive returns. Also, findings showed that the direction of the EPU effect on net connectedness changed during the pandemic onset, indicating that information spillovers from a given market may signal either good or bad news for other markets, depending on the prevailing economic situation. These results have important implications for individual investors, portfolio managers, policymakers, investment banks, and central banks.

Causality relationship between energy consumption, economic growth, FDI, and globalization in SSA countries: a symbolic transfer entropy analysis.

To substantiate the validity and usefulness of the symbolic transfer entropy test for longitudinal data, and how it validate or contrast existing study results generated using other forms of causality tests, we empirically examine panel-based causality relationships among foreign direct investment, energy consumption, globalization, and economic growth respectively, between the periods 1970 and 2014 using sub-Saharan African countries as a case study. Based on our findings, we are of the opinion that STE causality test results resonate existing findings, and it is a suitable causality approach for longitudinal data and for developing countries with poor-quality data, most specifically for the sample region.

Carbon emissions-income relationships with structural breaks: the case of the Middle Eastern and North African countries.

This article revisits the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions-GDP causal relationships in the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries by employing the Rossi (Economet Theor 21:962-990, 2005) instability-robust causality test. We show evidence of significant causality relationships for all considered countries within the instability context, whereas the standard Granger causality test fails to detect causal links in any direction, except for Egypt, Iran, and Morocco. An important policy implication resulting from this robust analysis is that the income is not affected by the cuts in the CO2 emissions for only two MENA countries, the UAE and Syria.