Transportation moderation in agricultural sector sustainability - a robust global perspective

Ecological security and agricultural production in the Arab League: Is financial development moderating the interaction?

The jeopardizing of ecological security due to the detrimental effects of human activities necessitates the adoption of various actions to reduce ecological intensity. Though some studies have explored the moderating impact of financial development (FND) towards achieving ecological security, in Arab World it has not been thoroughly investigated. Against this backdrop, we investigate combined role of agricultural production (AFP), gross domestic product (GDP), energy consumption, population, direct and moderating impacts of FND on ecological intensity for a panel of 12 Arab League member states from 1995 to 2021. The empirical outcomes unveiled that AFP and GDP have U-shaped nexus with ecological intensity. It posits that at early stages of AFP, ecological intensity is reduced to a certain level, beyond which higher AFPhinders ecological security supporting the evidence against the Borlaug hypothesis. Our findings further unfolded that environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis does not hold for the selected Arab League member states, denoting that real GDP has a U-shaped relationship with ecological intensity. Further findings confirm that energy consumption induces ecological deterioration in the absence of its interaction with FND, along with the interaction term. The causality results largely support these outcomes. Based on these findings, Arab League's climate-related policies should further explore FND to drive energy transition and environmentally friendly measures.

Environmental sustainability through aggregate demand and knowledge economy interaction-a case of very high-HDI countries

The magnitude of the economic activities is immense in very high-Human Development Index (HDI) countries, leading to environmental degradation, a crucial problem. This study is aimed at testing aggregate demand's role in the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) perspective and explores the role of four pillars of the knowledge economy, viz., technology, innovations, education, and institutions, as proposed by World Bank, in maintaining sustainable development of environmental quality in these countries. The analysis covers the period ranging from 1995 to 2022. The departure of normality of the variables provides a solid base for panel quantile regression (PQR). Unlike ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, which estimates the conditional mean of the dependent variable, PQR estimates the conditional quantiles. The estimated results using PQR confirm both U and inverted U-shaped aggregate demand-based EKC. In fact, these knowledge pillars in the model determine the shape of EKC. Results also reveal that two knowledge pillars, i.e., technology and innovations, are responsible for significantly reducing carbon emissions. In comparison, education and institutions are responsible for expanding carbon emissions. As a moderator, all knowledge pillars except institutions are shifting the EKC downward. The key lessons from these findings are that technology and innovation can reduce carbon emissions, while education and institutions may have a mixed impact. The relationship between knowledge pillars and emissions may be moderated by other factors, underscoring the need for further research. Moreover, urbanization, energy intensity, financial development, and trade openness significantly contribute to environmental deterioration.

Moderation of Services' EKC through Transportation Competitiveness: PQR Model in Global Prospective

The continuously increasing GHG emissions have created environmental pollution and several challenges to ecosystems and biodiversity. The challenges of climate change are multipronged, resulting in melting glaciers, flash floods, and severe heat waves. In this regard, the adaptive and mitigation strategies to manage the consequences of climate change are highly important. The transport sector creates a quarter of carbon emissions, and this share is continuously increasing. Accordingly, this research study uses transport competitiveness to determine carbon emissions of the transport sector for 121 countries covering the time period from 2008 to 2018. The Panel Quantile Regression (PQR) technique is engaged to analyze the study results. The findings highlight that transport competitiveness tends to increase carbon emissions of the transport sector across quantile groups 1 and 3, while it reduces carbon emissions in quantile group 2. The U-shaped services' EKC is validated in quantile groups 2 and 4. The moderation engaged, i.e., transportation competitiveness, changes the turning point of the services' EKC across quantile groups 2 and 4. However, in the high-CO₂ quantile group, the moderation impact of transport competitiveness is strongest as it reduces the sensitivity by flattening the services' EKC. Furthermore, the planned expansion of the population and improved institutional quality tend to mitigate carbon emissions across different quantile groups. The policy relevance/implications that are based on the study results/findings are made part of the research paper.

Exploring the moderating effect of globalization, financial development and environmental degradation nexus: a roadmap to sustainable development

Financial development is a multidimensional process that contributes to economic growth but sometimes it has a devastating effect on climate change. No country can achieve sustainable development goals without caring the environmental quality. The present study investigates the moderating role of globalization (KOF) in determining the financial development (FD) on environmental degradation in the SAARC countries from 1990 to 2020. The long-run coefficients are estimated using the panel quantile regression (PQR) approach at lower, middle and upper quantile groups. The study shows the U-shaped relationship across three quantile groups based on financial development and carbon emissions. The moderator globalization (KOF) brings up the change in the turning point and flattens before the maturity of the U-shaped curve at the middle quantile while flattens after the maturity of the U-shaped curve at the upper quantile. The study recommends that by using energy-efficient technologies, better financial sector interaction with globalization enhances the environmental quality in SAARC countries.