Have international remittance inflows degraded environmental quality? A carbon emission mitigation analysis for Ghana

Unleashing sustainability in uncertain times: Can we leverage economic complexity, uncertainty, and remittances to combat environmental degradation?

Rapid economic growth and human activities have seriously damaged the environment and hindered the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Hence, this study aims to explore the impact of economic complexity, uncertainty, and remittance on environmental degradation in 134 countries from 2000 to 2022. In addition, it examines whether uncertainty moderates the relationship between remittance and environmental degradation. Two proxies (ecological footprint and CO2) were used to measure environmental degradation. The analysis was conducted using a cross-sectional dependency test, second-generation unit root test, and panel quantile regression. The results revealed that economic complexity significantly and positively impacted environmental degradation, while uncertainty and remittance significantly and negatively impacted environmental degradation. Furthermore, uncertainty weakened the negative relationship between remittance and environmental degradation. Accordingly, this paper discusses various recommendations and policy implications regarding economic complexity, uncertainty, remittance, and environmental degradation.

Drivers of food security in West Africa: Insight from heterogeneous panel data analysis on income-level classification

This paper investigates the factors driving food security in West African countries. Specifically, it examines the impact of natural resource rents, institutional quality, and climate change on food security while controlling for industrialization and economic growth. Our research is motivated by the urgent need for swift policy action to address the escalating food crisis in the region and prevent any potential catastrophic consequences. Second-generation econometric techniques are utilized for accurate and reliable outcomes based on yearly datasets from West African countries from 2000 to 2020, and the countries are sub-grouped into low-income and lower-middle-income. The findings unveil the panel as heterogeneous and cross-sectionally based, and all the study variables are first differenced stationary and co-integrated in the long run. Hence, the Augmented Mean Group and Common Correlated Effects Mean Group estimators are utilized to explore the relationships between the variables, and the findings reveal that natural resource rents, climate change, and industrialization are detrimental to food security across the sub-groups. However, the outcomes affirm institutional quality and economic growth as beneficial drivers of food security across the sub-groups. Therefore, this study recommends that authorities of both low-income and lower-middle-income countries make substantial investments in sustainable natural resource utilization and also work towards enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of their institutions, as well as investing in environmental research to explore climate change mitigation possibilities that could enhance food security in West Africa.

Role of financial decentralization on carbon taxation and carbon emission: Way forwards for economic recovery

The study intends to assess the role of financial decentralization on carbon taxation and carbon emission to recommend the way forwards for economic recovery. To estimate the nexus, study applied the cointegration analysis technique, CGE estimation model, long-run analysis using t-CGE model, and robustness analysis technique on Chinese data. Research findings declare that financial decentralization has significant role on extending the carbon taxation in China and financial decentralization supported 14.92% to expand carbon taxation throughout the Chinese industries. In such industries, pollution emission industries are the top of the list including transportation industry and other manufacturing companies. Overall, manufacturing industries size is about 78% and 11% size of transportation industry is included. Correspondingly, the findings also revealed that financial decentralization supports climate change mitigation with 29% and carbon taxation limits carbon emission with 44% in Chinese industries. Study directs to the stakeholders to enhance carbon taxation schemes in all sectors of the all the industries of China and come up with the viable policy action so that the desired sustainable development goals may achieve effectively. Hence, stakeholders need to consider recommendations of preceding research to enhance green economic recovery.

The role of economic production, energy consumption, and trade openness in urbanization-environment nexus: a heterogeneous analysis on developing economies along the Belt and Road route

In today's world, where urbanization is at its pinnacle, has created a significant economic gap between rural and urban populations in developing economies and substantially influenced environmental degradation. This study investigates the relationship between urbanization and environmental degradation via carbon emissions among developing countries along the Belt and Road route from 1990 to 2019 while using economic production, energy consumption, and trade openness as control variables. The study engages current econometric methodologies to uncover accurate and reliable findings, and the outcomes reveal that the panel under investigation is cross-sectionally dependent and heterogeneous. Therefore, the AMG, CCEMG, and DCCEMG estimators are employed to examine the effect connection between the variables. The outcomes unveil that urbanization, economic production, and energy consumption escalate environmental degradation, but trade openness is confirmed as a trivial determinant of environmental degradation. Furthermore, the causal connections between the variables disclose bi-directional causalities between urbanization and environmental degradation and between energy consumption and environmental degradation. Nevertheless, uni-directional causalities are affirmed, spanning from economic production to environmental degradation and from trade openness to environmental degradation. Finally, policy implications are discussed.

Exploring the Dynamic Nexus Among Economic Growth, Industrialization, Medical Technology, and Healthcare Expenditure: A PMG-ARDL Panel Data Analysis on Income-Level Classification Along West African Economies

This article explored the dynamic nexus among economic growth, industrialization, medical technology, and healthcare expenditure in West Africa while using urbanization and aged population as control variables. West African countries were sub-sectioned into low-income (LI) and lower-middle-income (LMI) countries. Panel data extracted from the World Development Indicators (WDI) from 2000 to 2019 were used for the study. More modern econometric techniques that are vigorous to cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity were employed in the analytical process in order to provide accurate and trustworthy results. The homogeneity test and cross-sectional dependency test confirmed the studied panels to be heterogeneous and cross-sectionally dependent, respectively. Moreover, the CADF and CIPS unit root tests showed that the variables were not integrated in the same order. This, thus, leads to the employment of the PMG-ARDL estimation approach, which unveiled economic growth and urbanization as trivial determinants of healthcare expenditure in the LI and LMI panels. However, the results affirmed industrialization as a major determinant of healthcare expenditure in the LI and LMI panels. Additionally, medical technology was confirmed to decrease healthcare expenditure in the LMI panel, whereas in the LI panel, an insignificant impact was witnessed. Also, the aged population was found to intensify healthcare expenditure in both the LI and LMI panels. Lastly, on the causal connection between the series, the outcome revealed a mixture of causal paths among the variables in all the panels. Policy recommendations have therefore been proposed based on the study's findings.