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The nexus between environmental regulations, economic growth, and environmental sustainability: linking environmental patents to ecological footprint reduction in South Asia

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Abstract

Environmental sustainability has become a major concern for policymakers across the globe. In this regard, understanding the factors responsible for environmental degradation is particularly important for develo** nations. Against this backdrop, this study aims to evaluate the impacts of environmental regulations and other vital macroeconomic aggregates on the ecological footprints in the context of four fossil fuel-dependent South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The major findings from the econometric analysis, accounting for cross-sectional dependency, slope heterogeneity, and structural break issues in the data, reveal that environmental regulations portray significant roles in directly and indirectly reducing the ecological footprints across South Asia. Besides, the elasticity estimates verify the authenticity of the environmental Kuznets curve and the pollution haven hypotheses. On the other hand, non-renewable and renewable energy consumptions are found to increase and decrease the ecological footprints, respectively. Moreover, renewable energy use and environmental regulations are found to jointly reduce the ecological footprints further. More importantly, environmental regulations are predicted to reduce the adverse environmental impacts of economic growth, non-renewable energy use, and foreign direct investment inflows while increasing the favorable environmental impacts associated with renewable energy use. Furthermore, the country-specific impacts of environmental regulations on the ecological footprints are found to be more or less homogeneous to the corresponding panel estimates. The environmental Kuznets curve and pollution haven hypotheses are evidenced to hold for the majority of the four South Asia nations. In line with these findings, several relevant policy-level suggestions are put forward.

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Notes

  1. For an in-depth understanding of the RET see Murshed (2020b) and Murshed et al. (2020b).

  2. BRICS refers to the panel of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

  3. MINT refers to a group of countries including Nigeria, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey.

  4. Since the data on hydroelectricity consumption is the only renewable energy consumption data that is available for the study period, it is used as a proxy for the per capita renewable energy consumption levels of the selected South Asian nations.

  5. According to the OECD database, environmental regulations are classified into environmental taxes and environmental-related patents. Although the environmental tax figures would have been a better indicator of environmental regulation, the unavailability of taxation data has influenced the choice of using the environmental-related patents to proxy for environmental regulation in the South Asian context.

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The data sets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Economics, North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Muntasir Murshed

  2. Department of Finance & International Trade, Kongju National University, Gongju, South Korea

    Md. Aminur Rahman

  3. College of Commerce and Business Administration, Dhofar University, Salalah, Oman

    Md Shabbir Alam

  4. Department of Law, College of Humanity Sciences, University of Raparin, Sulaymaniyah, Iraq

    Paiman Ahmad

  5. International Relations and Diplomacy Department, Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Economics, Tishk International University, Erbil, Iraq

    Paiman Ahmad

  6. Amity School of Economics, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida, 201301, India

    Vishal Dagar

Authors
  1. Muntasir Murshed
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  2. Md. Aminur Rahman
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  3. Md Shabbir Alam
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  4. Paiman Ahmad
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  5. Vishal Dagar
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Contributions

MM conceptualized, wrote the introduction, conducted the econometric analysis, and analyzed the findings. MRA compiled the literature review. MSA compiled the literature review and generated the graphical illustrations. PA compiled the literature review and contributed in the methodology section. VD wrote the theoretical framework and the conclusion.

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Correspondence to Muntasir Murshed.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Murshed, M., Rahman, M.A., Alam, M.S. et al. The nexus between environmental regulations, economic growth, and environmental sustainability: linking environmental patents to ecological footprint reduction in South Asia. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 49967–49988 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13381-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13381-z

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