Financial inclusion-environmental degradation nexus in OIC countries: new evidence from environmental Kuznets curve using DCCE approach.

The disastrous consequences of climate change for human life and environmental sustainability have drawn worldwide attention. Increased global warming is attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, biodiversity loss, and deforestation due to industrial output and huge consumption of fossil fuels. Financial inclusion can be acted as an adaptation or a mitigation measure for environmental degradation. This study analyzed the impact of financial inclusion on environmental degradation in OIC countries for the period 2004-2018. A novel approach, "Dynamic Common Correlated Effects (DCCE)" is used to tackle the problem of heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence (CSD). Various GHG emissions along with deforestation and ecological footprint are used as indicators of environmental degradation. Long-run estimation confirms that financial inclusion is positively and significantly linked with CO2 emission, CH4 emission, and deforestation while negatively correlated with ecological footprint and N2O emission in overall and higher-income OIC economies. An inverted U-shaped environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) is validated when ecological footprint, CO2, and CH4 are used in all panels of OIC countries. An inverted U-shaped EKC is also observed for deforestation in lower-income and overall OIC countries. In the case of N2O emission, however, a U-shaped EKC appears in lower-income and overall OIC countries. It is suggested that the governments of OIC countries should continue to have easy access to financial services and maintain sustainable use of forests and biocapacity management to address environmental challenges.

Validation of environmental Philips curve in Pakistan: a fresh insight through ARDL technique.

The tremendous increase of greenhouse gases puts adverse effects on environmental degradation, unemployment, and economic growth. Against this backdrop, and implementing the more recent estimation approach, the present study investigates the validity of the novel environmental Phillips curve (i.e., inverse relationship between unemployment and environmental degradation) carried by Kashem and Rahman (2020). The unique contribution of this research is to examine the three environmental indicators (CO2, CH4, and ecological footprint) as a dependent variable with the same independent variables, i.e., unemployment rate, energy consumption, economic growth, foreign direct investment, and globalization, from 1975 to 2014 in Pakistan. The results validate a negative relationship of unemployment rate with CO2, CH4, and ecological footprint in the long run that proves the existence of environment Philips curve for Pakistan. However, a positive association is observed for energy consumption and CO2, CH4, and ecological footprint. The positive connection of energy consumption and environmental indicators determined that not only CO2 emissions rather CH4 and ecological footprint play an equal role in environmental degradation. Furthermore, in the long run foreign direct investment improves environmental sustainability for CO2, and ecological footprint thus proved the pollution halo hypothesis for Pakistan. Probing the effects of globalization that badly pollutes environmental sustainability. Therefore, the policymakers should focus on innovations and technological improvements to contemplate both environmental degradation and unemployment. There is a need for sudden actions for energy consumption plans in Pakistan for the nation's health, economic growth, and environmental sustainability.

Asymmetric effect of FDI and public expenditure on population health: new evidence from Pakistan based on non-linear ARDL.

The core purpose of the study is to examine the asymmetric effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) and population health (measured by life expectancy index). The study takes time series data for 1980-2020. The non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) bound testing to cointegration approach is applied to scrutinize an asymmetric association among foreign direct investment, government expenditures, trade openness, public debt, and population health. The study also used an asymmetric causality test to investigate the causal association between the measured variables. The findings affirm that cointegration exists between the variables in the occurrence of asymmetries. The asymmetric causality outcomes confirm that only positive changes in FDI have bidirectional causality to life expectancy while negative shocks have unidirectional that runs from FDI to life expectancy. The government expenditure and foreign direct investment also provided evidence of social sector health welfare in Pakistan. The output shows that increasing government expenditure can cause an increase in life expectancy while decreasing government expenditure can cause a decrease in life expectancy. The study found that investment in health care medical services is paramount to better results as far as government assistance (welfare) gains. The outcomes of the study have given numerous policy suggestions to boost life expectancy in the general public of Pakistan.

Moderating role of institutional quality in validation of pollution haven hypothesis in BRICS: a new evidence by using DCCE approach.

The technological innovation and strict environmental protocols in the highly developed regions have become the primary sources for foreign direct investment to move in the pollution haven economies. In this regard, this study attempted to identify the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the developing economies of the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) region. For this reason, a dataset was obtained between 1995 and 2019. Chudik and Pesaran's (2015) latest dynamic common correlated effects (DCCE) technique is used because of its new features when integrating the problems of heterogeneity and structural breaks into panel data that are general and do not encompass much recent research in this context. According to the empirical outcomes, foreign direct investment is a source of pollution haven in this region. However, the moderating effect of institutional quality on foreign direct investment has been found negative for ecological footprint. It also found the threshold point where the foreign direct investment effect becomes negative on ecological footprint. Based on these empirical results, this research suggests that foreign direct investment strategy should be maintained in the presence of good institutional efficiency as it enhances the environment and promotes economic development.

Nexus between corporate social responsibility and firm's perceived performance: evidence from SME sector of developing economies.

The objective of this study is to understand the impact of corporate social responsibility on firm performance and measure the difference of this impact on local and foreign companies. The data collected from 83 companies were based on questionnaires of small and medium enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs of Pakistan in two times and each time within 2 months. The literature analysis method and structural equation theory are used to do the research. The results show that (i) there is a positive and significant relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the two determinants (corporate reputation and employee engagement) of company performance; (ii) for Pakistani companies, both social and environmental CSR contribute positively to firm performance; and (iii) environmental aspects of CSR are the most important to the reputation and employee commitment for Pakistani companies. This study intends to provide more empirical knowledge on how CSR contributes to corporate performance. It also proposes theoretical and practical implications, highlighting what local and foreign companies in developing countries still need to do in terms of CSR. The study provides valuable information for policymakers.

Optimal oil stockpiling, peak oil, and general equilibrium: case study of South Asia (oil importers) and Middle East (oil supplier).

Optimal stockpiling is the best possible strategy to overcome the problem of peak oil periods of oil producer economies. We measured the properties of strategic petroleum oil reserve and general equilibrium and its peak oil effects. Measured the optimized scales of SPR through using oil price model, global oil market, and depletion effects of oil production classification. The peak oil period occurs from the interection between the geological era, proficiency in a practical skill, economy of consumers, and geopolitics, and the quality of deciding of demand and supply in which we have done a general dynamic balance model. Results reveal that peak oil time periods may lead towards diverse oil prices time profiles, economic development, and commodity flows. Interestingly, the macroeconomic effects of peak oil and the trajectories in objective function of two options maximize the households' welfare and oil revenues and its effect on growth trajectories of oil-consuming countries. If an oil supply disruption happens, the rate of oil acquisition will be considerably decreased, though it may not be a good strategy to interrupt the activities of oil reserve with the aim of minimizing the overall costs.

Assessing the impacts of globalization and gender parity on economic growth: empirical evidence from OIC countries.

The contemporary debate on globalization and gender equality has a strong impact on economic growth. The present study analyzes the impacts of globalization and gender parity on economic growth in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) 47 member countries for the period (1991-2017), using System GMM panel data technique. The results of system GMM have also been empirically estimated by making two groups (viz., low-income and high-income OIC member countries from the World Bank data classification, 2019) to examine the robustness of globalization and gender parity on economic growth. The results reveal that there is a negative impact of globalization on economic growth in the overall sample of OIC countries. When estimated by decomposing low-income countries and high-income countries, globalization has a significantly positive impact on economic growth in the case of high-income OIC countries, whereas globalization slashes GDP in the case of low-income OIC countries. The study finds that there is a positive impact of gender parity (ratio of female to male labor force work participation) on economic growth. Moreover, foreign remittances, government expenditures, capital formation, and human capital are also becoming the causes of a significant increase in economic growth in OIC member countries.

Correction to: Optimal oil stockpiling, peak oil, and general equilibrium: case study of South Asia (oil importers) and Middle East (oil supplier).

The correct affiliation of the 1st Author is shown in this paper.

Correction to: Assessing the integration of solar power projects: SWOT-based AHP-F-TOPSIS case study of Turkey.

The correct affiliation of the 1st Author is shown in this paper.

Assessing the integration of solar power projects: SWOT-based AHP-F-TOPSIS case study of Turkey.

Solar energy systems are a cheaper and easy solution to cope with severe energy crisis especially in emerging economies including Turkey which exerted huge efforts to enhance the existing solar power projects. However, the selection of the optimal site for the installation of solar projects needs vigorous investigation through various factors. Adequate quantitative scientific research is required for the process of site selection in Turkey. This paper categorizes various sites in Turkey through various factors such as economic, environmental, and social factors. Various major criteria have been combined through mathematical development to install the solar power project in remote areas of Turkey. The scientific evaluation of remote and rural solar projects in Turkey has been taken as a case study in the current paper. Additionally, the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and F-VIKOR methods were used to aggregate the criteria. The results show that economic and social ratio is significant, whereas the transmission matrix, land cost, and the sun irradiance got a major score in order to generate electricity. The study results show that total sunshine time per year determined is 2741 h (a total of 7.5 h per day) and the total solar energy obtained each year is 1527 kWh per square meter per year (a total of 4.18 kWh per square meter per day).

Analyzing carbon emission transfer network structure among provinces in China: new evidence from social network analysis.

Domestic trade plays a key role in China's rapid economic progress. However, the increased domestic trade causes significant variations in carbon emission transfer among provinces. This study adopted the multi-region input-output (MRIO) model and social network analysis (SNA) to estimate the carbon emission transfer. Furthermore, the carbon emission transfer network characteristics among 30 provinces and 27 sectors were analyzed by using interprovincial input-output tables for 2007, 2010, and 2012. The results showed that (1) Large differences exist in carbon emission transfer flow and its network characteristics between provinces. (2) The three industrial sectors of metal smelting and pressing sector, power, heat production, and supply sector, petroleum processing, coking, and nuclear fuel processing sector have high carbon emission transfer and pose a strong influence on the carbon emission transfer network. (3) Provinces of the eastern region have a "bidirectional spillover" role, while those of the western region have a mediating role as an "agent." Provinces of the central region have a "main inflow" role. Finally, useful policy implications and suggestions of this study are summarized.

Environmental efficiency and the role of energy innovation in emissions reduction.

Environmental problems, including extreme weather phenomena, unprecedented global warming, and environmental disasters caused by increasing levels of CO2 and other toxic emissions, along with rapidly increasing economic development and energy consumption, require global development and policies to meet sustainable development goals. The traditional data envelopment analysis (DEA) model has limited practical applicability for measuring environmental performance, as it lacks the computational capacity to deal with undesirable outputs. The current study employs "radial" and "non-radial" DEA technology, and acknowledges the associations of a mathematical foundation to increase the analytical capability of the environmental performance of DEA. Results show that in the measurement of environmental performance analysis, the non-radial DEA model has a higher discriminating power compared to radial DEA. Results show that the average values of radial and non-radial environmental performance are highest for Latin America and the Caribbean, at 0.99 and 0.96, respectively, while the former USSR has the lowest values of 0.22 and 0.32, respectively. The South Asian region shows relatively stable values of about 0.58 to 0.65, and Latin America & Caribbean countries and sub-Saharan Africa also show a stable radial environmental performance ranging from 0.82 to 1.00. These results indicate a considerable difference among the eight world regions.

Correction to: Environmental efficiency and the role of energy innovation in emissions reduction.

The correct affiliation of the 1st Author is shown in this paper.

Trilemma assessment of energy intensity, efficiency, and environmental index: evidence from BRICS countries.

This paper provides an assessment of energy density and energy efficiency and creates an important indicator of environmental performance. This article applied two mathematical models and econometric techniques to obtain detailed and specific results. The DEA and the non-normative account aggregation mean a collective aggregation to form a mathematical aggregation tool to create an environmental index for the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) based on available data from 2011 to 2016. The advantage of the proposed approach is to manage the irregularities of the data and follow the desired properties of the index number. The current paper is relevant for the broad scope of construction, the environmental index, and the evolution of the rankings of countries based on multiple indicators. Our results indicate that Brazil and Russia have the highest values of the Environmental Performance Index, which range between 67.44 and 60.70, respectively. India has a minimum value of 30.57 of the environmental index. The analysis shows that Brazil, Russia, and South Africa have the best scores and that these countries have the best results, while China and India also have the best results. This study can help form a valuable political tool for the development and development of the country's politics.