Impacts of financial development and economic growth matter in environmental sustainability: Empirical insights from Vietnam

Sustainable Development as a Strategic Factor in Ecuador’s Economic Growth: A Socioeconomic and Environmental Analysis

INVESTIGATING THE NEXUS OF ECONOMIC GROWTH, ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND CARBON EMISSIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA:EVIDENCE FROM COINTEGRATION AND CAUSALITY ANALYSIS

The economic forecast for South Africa is expected to be moderately positive, marked by rapid population growth, an emerging middle-income status, elevated energy consumption, and considerable energy emissions. Grasping these interrelations is crucial for informing suitable policy choices. This study investigates the long-term and short-term relationships between economic growth, energy use, emissions, capital formation, and labour in South Africa from 1970 to 2023. This research aims to explore the causal link between energy consumption, economic growth, and CO2 emissions using a VECM framework. Results show a stable long-run relationship where increases in labour and capital significantly boost GDP, but rising emissions severely hamper growth. Energy consumption alone is not statistically significant. The adjustment speed to shocks is slow, with only 0.63% correction per period. Short-run analysis indicates capital formation influences immediate output changes, while growth weakly affects energy demand, supporting a growth-driven model rather than an energy-driven one. Diagnostic tests confirm model stability and reliability. The findings suggest that sustainable development depends on modernizing the energy grid and reforming structural components to utilize labour better.

Economic Growth, Service Sector, and Urbanization Effects on Environmental Degradation in Uzbekistan: Evidence from ARDL Analysis

Balancing economic growth with environmental sustainability remains a serious challenge for many transition economies. This study analyzes the relationship between economic growth, service sector expansion, urbanization, and environmental degradation in Uzbekistan. Employing yearly temporal series data from 1991 to 2024, the research implements an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing methodology to investigate the short-run and long-run relationships among the variables. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are used as proxies for environmental degradation, while GDP per capita, service sector value added, and urban population growth represent key economic and structural factors. The empirical results show that there is a stable long-run cointegration relationship between the variables. The findings show that economic growth significantly reduces CO2 emissions in the long run, which supports the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for Uzbekistan. Conversely, the expansion of the service sector and rapid urbanization are found to increase CO2 emissions and contribute to environmental degradation. The error correction model shows a rapid adjustment rate of approximately 66.5% to the long-run equilibrium after short-term shocks. Through these results, we attempted to reveal the importance of sustainable urban development, green economic policies, and the development of an environmentally friendly service sector in Uzbekistan.

Do environmental technology and renewable energy improve financial development? Evidence from G7 Countries

This study reveals the impact of GDP per capita, trade openness, renewable energy and technology on financial development in the world's most developed countries for the period of 1990-2021. In this context, this study especially focused on whether environmental technologies and renewable energy support financial development. Driscoll-Kraay Panel regression analysis is used to estimate panel data in this study. In addition, panel quantile regression analysis is performed to determine the coefficients of the variables at different quantile. The long-run results are authenticated using panel fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) and canonical cointegration regression (CCR). It is concluded that increases in renewable energy consumption and environment-related technology reduce financial development in the long-run. Although many studies found that financial development has positive effects on renewable energy consumption, the feedback effect is negatively in G7 countries to current study. In other words, policy incentives should be provided to return the productive resources created by financial instruments used in renewable energy investments back to the financial system and balance financial growth between environmental sustainability. The results suggest that financial markets should be regulated to obtain the positive effects of environmentally friendly investments. In this respect, this study signals that we have entered a period in which financial markets need to be reorganized.

Exploring a symmetric nexus between financial development and renewable energy consumption in South Africa

Global economic development is closely linked to energy use, yet rising fossil-fuel consumption has intensified carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions and environmental degradation. This study examines the long-run and short-run relationship between renewable energy consumption and financial development in South Africa over the period 1990–2024 using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. The variables included are renewable energy consumption, financial development, economic growth, capital formation, and inflation. Financial development is proxied by credit extension, monetary aggregate (M3), and stock exchange transactions. The results confirm the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables. Financial development has a positive and statistically significant effect on renewable energy consumption in both the short run and long run, indicating that deeper and more efficient financial markets improve access to capital for renewable energy projects. Economic growth and capital formation also promote renewable energy expansion, while inflation negatively affects renewable energy consumption by raising investment costs and uncertainty. The study recommends that the government should promote an environmentally friendly economy by expanding green finance instruments, introducing tax incentives and subsidies for clean energy investments, and strengthening regulatory certainty. Public-private partnerships should be encouraged to mobilise private capital for solar, wind, and biomass infrastructure. Maintaining macroeconomic stability and improving financial inclusion are also essential for achieving sustainable growth, energy security, and climate change mitigation in South Africa.

Stock Market Development and Environmental Sustainability in Africa

The level of environmental vulnerabilities is elevated in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study adopted an African perspective to evaluate the impact of capital market development on environmental sustainability, drawing on inclusive theoretical and empirical constructs of the nexus between the two. Beyond carbon emissions as a proxy for environmental quality, the study added proxies for natural resources and forest depletion to examine the relationship. The sample consisted of 10 countries, and data were collected between 1993 and 2022. Econometrically, we applied panel-estimated generalized least squares, cross-section seemingly unrelated regression with panel-corrected standard errors, dynamic ordinary least squares, and fully modified ordinary least squares to investigate the static and dynamic relationships between the variables. Our observation was that the impact of stock market development on environmental sustainability depends on the proxy used to measure environmental sustainability. By and large, we observed that, on the one hand, stock market development significantly increases carbon emissions and, on the other hand, reduces forest and natural resource depletion. This study recommends that stock exchange regulators strictly enforce mandatory environmental impact disclosures and financial reporting regulations to ensure compliance by listed firms. For instance, regulators should require listed extractive industry firms to provide environmental accountability as part of their annual financial reporting, ensuring continuous compliance and ongoing monitoring of their environmental impacts. The issuance of climate-backed financial securities, such as green and brown bonds, is recommended to encourage firms to fund their green projects and to help firms with high emission rates transition to environmentally sustainable production methods.