Climate change dynamics for global energy security and equity: Evidence from policy stringency drivers.

This study investigates the dynamic interplay between financial integration, political stability, infrastructure, and global integration in enhancing Energy Security (ES) and Energy Equity (EE) across 50 economies from 2006 to 2018. It addresses gaps in understanding how socio-economic, political, and technological factors collectively influence ES and EE during the global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. The research aims to reveal the complex relationships and potential trade-offs between energy sustainability, economic growth, and equitable energy distribution. Utilizing robust panel data methods including System GMM, Fixed Effects, and Random Effects, the study examines the impacts of various determinants on ES and EE. The dataset includes annual observations on global integration, financial integration, infrastructure quality, political stability, and other relevant metrics from diverse global sources. The findings reveal that increased financial integration significantly enhances ES by easing capital flow into energy infrastructure, which is crucial for stable energy supply chains. Political stability also positively affects ES, underscoring the importance of stable governance in sustaining energy policies. Conversely, rapid urban growth and inadequate social integration pose challenges to achieving EE, highlighting disparities in energy access worsened by urbanization. Technological advancements and digital connectivity appear as positive drivers for EE, enhancing the efficiency and distribution of energy resources. This study contributes to the literature by providing a detailed examination of how integration into global financial and political systems affects energy strategies at a national level. It offers valuable insights for policymakers on fostering environments conducive to sustainable energy development and fair energy access. The research underscores the importance of incorporating socio-economic and technological advancements in energy policy frameworks to achieve balanced growth and sustainability. Future research directions include exploring the causal relationships and long-term impacts of these factors on ES and EE, particularly in the context of evolving global energy policies and technological advancements.

Impact of political conflict on foreign direct investments in the mining sector: Evidence from the event study and spatial estimation.

This study aims to investigate the impact of conflict on greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) in the mining sector covering the period of the 1st quarter of 2003 until the 3rd quarter of 2017, across 151 countries. Unlike previous works, this paper focuses on testing two impacts. First, we test for a dynamic impact to uncover the effect of conflict on FDI over the contemporary and subsequent annual quarters. Second, we test for a spatial spillover impact. To achieve these goals, we apply both a panel spatial approach and an event study analysis, using a unique proprietary database FDIMarkets. The main findings are as follows. First, the presence of a dynamic impact depends on the intensity of the conflict for the particular country group, with higher levels of intensity being associated with a higher probability of the presence of a dynamic effect. Second, we find a significant negative spillover impact of greenfield mining FDI of neighbouring countries on the greenfield mining FDI of the FDI-receiving economy. We do not find, however, that conflict in neighbouring countries has a spatial spillover impact on greenfield mining FDI of the FDI-receiving economy.

Analysing the trend of illicit tobacco in the Philippines from 1998 to 2018.

Tobacco taxation is the most effective measure to reduce cigarette consumption and consequently improve public health outcomes. It is also an important source of government revenue. The presence of an illicit tobacco market diminishes the public health and fiscal gains of cigarette levies by making cheaper non-taxed cigarettes available. To date, the research on the extent of illicit tobacco trade in the Philippines, despite its potential to inform policies for controlling the supply of illicit cigarettes, has been limited. This study provides an estimate of the size of the illicit tobacco market in the Philippines from 1998 to 2018. It employs gap analysis comparing an estimate of the survey-based adult cigarette consumption with legally sold cigarettes in the Philippines. The illicit trade estimates are contrasted with the evolution of tax changes. The results show that the illicit cigarette market share dropped by 42% from 2003 to 2008 and by an additional 79% from 2008 to 2013. In spite of the large tax increases by the Philippine government through the Sin Tax Law starting from 2013 until 2018, the illicit share in 2018 remains similar to its 1998 level of 16% of the total market. Hence, our study finds no evidence of a positive relationship between tobacco taxes and size of illicit cigarette market in the Philippines.

The impact of financial development on ecological footprints of nations.

Financial development is an important driver of technological progress in economic development. Its role in environmental change has not been well examined. We endeavor to examine the non-linear effects of multi-dimensional financial development measures on four kinds of ecological footprints in a global sample of 124 economies. We apply a two-step system generalized method of moments to deal with possible endogeneity. We find a stark difference in the impact of financial institutions' development and financial markets' development on the ecological footprints. Whereas financial institutions, with their three dimensions (i.e., depth, access, and efficiency) have an inverted-U shaped relationship with the ecological footprints, allowing for the initially harmful effect on the environment to revert to beneficial effects, the same results are not observed for financial markets. We attribute the inverse-U shaped relationship to a declining scale effect of FD and rising technological and composition effects of FD that transform the economy. Based on that we recommend that best practices of financial institutions regarding making environmentally conscious investment decisions be turned into a conscious investing culture around the world. For this to become a reality, better information-sharing regarding the individual environmental performance of firms will be needed.

The impact of innovation on environmental quality: Evidence for the non-linear relationship of patents and CO2 emissions in China.

We seek to test whether innovation, measured by the number of accepted patents improves or worsens the environment in China. We hypothesize the existence of an inverse U-shaped curve, which differs by industry and provincial level of development. In that context, we test for a quadratic relationship between accepted patents and CO2 emissions per capita in 30 provinces and 32 economic sectors of China. We use a novel fixed effect panel data quantile (FEQR) regression estimator and differentiate between energy-intensive and non-energy intensive sectors, as well as between more and less-developed provinces of China. We find evidence for an inverse U-shaped relation between patent generation and CO2 emissions for both, more and less energy-intensive sectors, suggesting that at low levels of innovation new technologies tend to be "dirty", but at high levels of innovation new technologies tend to be "green". The same relationship holds for less-developed provinces as well. For more-developed provinces, we find the opposite relation, which we explain with a "rebound effect".

Capital outflows and the environment: fresh evidence from M&A purchases and greenfield FDI.

We analyze how the mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and greenfield foreign direct investment (GFDI) outflows impact the host countries' air pollution at the sectoral level. Following the recent advent of multinationals from emerging economies, we examine outflows rather than inflows. Evidence indicates that there are important distinctive effects of FDI mode of exit. GFDI outflows benefit the environment in the full sample and developing countries, supporting the reverse-pollution haven hypothesis, and at the industry level in the electrical power industry and building. The positive impact of M&A outflows on the environment is revealed only when data is disaggregated further into the industry level in the transport industry of developed economies and the electrical power industry of developing countries. We find that heterogeneities caused by countries' development levels and the FDI's two exit modes, M&As deteriorate the environment less than GFDI.

Does knowledge matter for the environment? Global evidence of economic complexity and ecological footprints.

This study endeavors to explore the impact of knowledge materialized in production on the environment by examining the influences of economic complexity on ecological footprints. The empirical analysis is carried out for a global sample of 95 economies comprising 30 low- and lower-middle-income economies, 27 upper-middle-income economies, and 38 high-income economies. The robust results from several panel estimates show two interesting findings. First, the economic complexity has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the ecological footprints of production and consumption in the full sample. Second, that relationship is confirmed in lower-middle-income, but not in upper-middle-income economies. Moreover, the inverted U shape is evidenced by the Consumption Ecological Footprint in high-income economies. The results imply the existence of an Economic complexity Ecological Kuznets Curve in the relationship between economic complexity and ecological footprints.

How does body mass index affect economic growth? A comparative analysis of countries by levels of economic development.

The WHO views obesity as a significant risk to population health. Evidence suggests that obesity reduces labor-market attachment, worker productivity, and earnings. This link at the micro level may translate into adverse effects on economic growth at the macro level. Few studies have evaluated how body mass index impacts economic growth across and within countries. This sparse evidence base reflects the lack of consistent data across a broad spectrum of countries and timespan, as well as the empirical difficulties in bypassing endogeneity bias relating to unobserved selection and potential reverse causality between bodyweight and GDP. We address both of these challenges by first assembling a comprehensive panel of data spanning 116 countries over 25 years (1984-2008), and then presenting, to the best of our knowledge, the first empirical study of economic growth and obesiy correcting for endogeneity. Our GMM estimates indicate that, in developed countries, a higher level of BMI has direct negative effects on economic growth in a fully saturated model that controls for levels of human capital. In particular, we predict that the increase in BMI over the time period of analysis may have reduced potential economic growth over this period by between 3.5-5.8 percentage points.

Nutrient intake: A cross-national analysis of trends and economic correlates.

Nutrition is a key input in the health production function, and a better understanding of how we eat can aid in guiding effective policy change towards better population health. This study documents prevalence rates, trends in, and potential correlates of nutrient intake for panels of countries, categorized by geographical regions and levels of development. We assemble data from 209 countries, spanning 51 years (1961-2011), based on original data compilations using 960 country-years for BMI, 370 country-years for glucose, and 321 country-years for cholesterol. Our estimates inform the nature and scope of nutrient intake on a global scale, and contribute towards an understanding of the drivers of the general upward trend in food intake and obesity. The cross-national trends, across countries spanning the spectrum of economic development and geographic regions, suggest that simply analyzing aggregate caloric intake masks the heterogeneity in trends for the various food groups. Food groups analyzed include cereals, sugars and sweeteners, vegetable oils, meat, starch, milk, fruits, animal fats, alcoholic beverages, oil crops, pulses, vegetables, fish, and eggs. Fixed effects regression analyses reveal that caloric intake is strongly associated with hunger depth, body mass index, cholesterol levels, and glucose levels. Moreover, changes in real GDP per capita, labor force participation, and health care inputs in a nation can partly explain the increase in caloric intake. We note that substantial heterogeneity remains.