Coal consumption-environmental sustainability nexus in developed and developing major coal-consuming economies.

Coal is crucial for economic progress but equally baneful to the environment. Thus, the coal consumption-environmental sustainability nexus attracted the attention of both policymakers and scholars. This study evaluates the coal consumption-environment nexus in developed and developing countries over the period 2000-2020. We used panel data econometric techniques and the Augmented Anderson-Hsiao (AAH) two-step GMM estimator to assess and compare the impact of coal consumption on CO2. The findings revealed that the consumption of coal aggravates environmental pollution and hinders environmental sustainability. Thus, this study confirms the environment-destroying effect of coal consumption. However, the findings reveal that the negative consequence of coal consumption on the environment is more for the sample of developed countries than that of developing countries. This suggests that coal use harms the environment developed economies than the developing countries. Specifically, we found that the carbon emissions emanating from a one percent (1%) increase in coal consumption of the developed countries is about six-fold more than that of the developing countries. Therefore, this study suggests a gradual phase-out, rather than sudden phase-out, of coal consumption with greater emphasis on developed countries. The implementation of the coal phase-out policy and the removal of fossil fuel subsidies should start with the developed countries or be made more stringent in such countries than the developing economies. The developed countries should relinquish a greater proportion of their coal consumption than the developing countries.

Sanctions and economic growth: Do sanction diversity and level of development matter?

The application of economic and political sanctions becomes a vital tool of international politics to facilitate peaceful coexistence among the nations. However, the issue of the effectiveness of sanctions in creating adequate disutility to ensure compliance remains contentious. Therefore, this study assesses the effect of sanctions on the economic growth of the target states. It captures the diversity of sanctions using system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) with extensive dataset for the period 1970-2018. The findings reveal that extensive, multilateral sanctions, and export restriction are the only sanction categories that are effective in creating disutility and reducing the real income per capita growth when targeted at the developed countries. On the other hand, limited sanctions (partial embargo) - sanctions that are targeted at specific sectors, groups, and issues such as withdrawal of foreign aid, as well as import restrictions can effectively reduce income per capita growth when imposed on developing countries while all other categories of sanctions have a positive effect on income growth in targeted developing economy. Therefore, we, conclude that the sanctions diversity, development level of the target country and sender identity play vital roles concerning the sanctions-economic growth nexus. These attributes should be considered in the application and analyses of sanctions to ensure their effectiveness. The study provided several interesting policy insights.

Sustainable electricity consumption in South Africa: the impacts of tourism and economic growth.

The current study examines sustainable electricity consumption for economic growth in a small open and tourist economy. The energy-tourism nexus is evaluated for the relationship between sustainable electricity consumption and the international tourist arrival for the South African economy. The present study leverages on annual frequency data for South Africa from 1995 to 2019 for empirical analysis using the ARDL technique. Accordingly, empirical findings indicate a significant direct connection between the sustainable electricity consumption and the international tourism arrival; the study affirms that tourism-induced energy hypothesis is valid in South Africa. However, from a policy standpoint, alternative energy efficiency mechanisms such as renewable energy systems and emancipation of current energy management capabilities are recommended in South Africa. This is necessary for sustainable eco-friendly tourism that engenders clean energy consumption for the study area. More insights into policy caveats are presented in the concluding section.

Symmetric and asymmetric GARCH estimations of the impact of oil price uncertainty on output growth: evidence from the G7.

Crude oil is an essential source of energy. Without access to energy, output growth is impossible. As a result of this link, volatility in oil prices has the ability to induce fluctuations in the output of both developed and developing economies. Moreover, factors such as business cycles and policy changes often introduce nonlinearity into the transmission mechanism of oil price shocks. This study therefore examines not only the interconnectedness of oil price volatility and output growth, but also the nonlinear, asymmetric impact of oil price volatility on output growth in the countries making up the Group of Seven. To this end, monthly data on West Texas Intermediate oil price and industrial production indices of the Group of Seven countries over the period 1990:01 to 2019:08 is used for empirical analysis. The study employs the DCC and cDCC-GARCH techniques for symmetric empirical analysis. The asymmetric empirical analysis is also conducted via GJR-GARCH, FIEGARCH, HYGARCH and cDCC-GARCH techniques. The findings reveal disparities in the magnitudes of the positive and negative (asymmetric) effects of oil price shocks on output growth. The results also reveal that past news and lagged volatility have a significant impact on the current conditional volatility of the output growth of the Group of Seven countries. The study concludes that the impact of oil price volatility on output growth in the selected economies is asymmetric, the volatility is highly persistent and clustered, and the asymmetric GARCH models outperform the symmetric GARCH models.

Towards achieving environmental sustainability: environmental quality versus economic growth in a developing economy on ecological footprint via dynamic simulations of ARDL.

Studies have shown that factors like trade, urbanization, and economic growth may increase the ecological footprint (EFP) since ecological distortions are mainly human-induced. Therefore, this study explores the effect of economic growth and urbanization on the EFP, accounting for foreign direct investment and trade in Nigeria, using data from 1977 to 2016. This study used the EFP variable as against the CO2 emissions used in the previous studies since the former is a more comprehensive and extensive measure of environmental quality. We apply the novel dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) simulations for model estimation, the Bayer and Hanck J Time Ser Anal 34: 83-95, (2013) combined cointegration, and the ARDL bounds test for cointegration. Although the results affirmed the presence of long-run relationship among the variables, economic growth deteriorates the environment in the short run, while urbanization exacts no harmful impact. In the long run, FDI and trade deteriorate the environment while economic growth adds to environmental quality. It is recommended that policymakers strengthen the existing environmental regulations to curtail harmful trade and provide rural infrastructures to abate urban anomaly.

Impact assessment of trade on environmental performance: accounting for the role of government integrity and economic development in 79 countries.

Trade has become a carrier for transporting both clean and dirty (pollution-intensive) goods, services and technologies between countries. While the impact of trade on economic development has been reported in the extant literature, insufficient and inconsistent results exist between pollution-embedded trade and environmental performance. Using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Generalized method of moments and panel quantiles via Moments, this study explored the role of government integrity on trade-environment nexus in the post-Kyoto protocol era for 79 countries between 2008 and 2018. The empirical results suggest that per capita GDP and government integrity improve environmental performance whereas trade impedes it. In the quantile regression model, the effect of government integrity is significant at the median quantiles with a stronger effect in countries with higher environmental performance. The negative effect of trade is not only significant from the lower quantile through the median quantile but decreases in magnitude, tracking from countries with lower to higher environmental performance. While the positive effect of government integrity is significant from the median quantile onwards, the negative effect of trade is only significant in the lower quantile. Robustness analysis from the GMM dynamic panel estimation technique shows that interacting government integrity with trade yields a positive and significant coefficient. Meaning that improved government integrity averts the negative effect of trade on environmental performance. The study suggests that outsourcing the regulations of trade-oriented multinational companies operating in developing economies with weak institutions to global humanitarian organisations such as the United Nations would be the first step to reduce trade-attributable environmental degradation.