How relevant is environmental quality to per capita health expenditures? Empirical evidence from panel of developing countries

Testing the impact of environmental taxation and IFRS adoption on consumption-based carbon in European countries

Several governance regulations have been adopted in European countries to promote environmental sustainability, such as environmental taxation and environmental disclosures in financial reports. In this context, this paper examines the linkage between environmental taxation, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and environmental sustainability in European countries from 1994 to 2018. Unlike earlier empirical studies, the present work is the first to assess the impact of environmental taxation and IFRS adoption on consumption-based carbon emissions. In order to yield valid and reliable outcomes, the modern econometric method that is vigorous to cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity was employed. Likewise, the study uses the novel method of moment quantile regressions (MMQR). The MMQR outcomes illustrated that environmental taxation significantly negatively affects consumption-based emissions in European countries, indicating that environmental taxation has a positive effect on the ecological sustainability. Besides, the findings show that IFRS negatively affects consumption-based emissions, while economic growth positively affects the level of consumption-based emissions. Therefore, European governments must use fiscal and financial policies to mitigate ecological pollution. Moreover, more environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure in European industries could also help promote environmental sustainability in European countries.

Air, land, and water pollutants and public health expenditures: Empirical data from selected EU countries in the transport sector

The increase in economic activity, particularly in transport, leads to a significant increase in emissions of pollutants, such as ammonia, arsenic and cadmium, at the European Union (EU) level. This can seriously impact human health and, consequently, public health spending. Based on data from 15 European Union countries from 1992 to 2020, a panel co-integration approach is used to study these pollutants' short- and long-term co-movements and per capita health expenditure. The results show a long-term relationship between ammonia, arsenic and cadmium emissions and per capita health spending, as they are panel-cointegrated. Ammonia and cadmium emissions exert a statistically significant positive effect on health expenditure in the short run, and arsenic emissions have a statistically significant positive impact in the long run. The forecast assessment of reductions in health spending resulting from policies to reduce emissions of air, land and water pollutants, such as ammonia, arsenic and cadmium, from the transport sector supports investments in its policies that reduce pressure on health spending. The reduction in annual healthcare expenditure is greater when these reductions are made sooner and more severely. Indeed, varying the reduction in emissions for each pollutant by 10% and 100%, respectively, from the first year for all countries over a 3-year period results in an average annual reduction in health spending of 2.05% and 51.02%, respectively. However, if we wait until the third year, the annual reduction is only 0.77% and 17.63% respectively.

The nexus among CO2 emission, health expenditure and economic development in the OECD countries: New insights from a cross-sectional ARDL model

To find a way to realize sustainable development, this paper applied a cross-sectional ARDL (CS-ARDL) method to explore the interaction between carbon emissions, economic development, and health care expenditure for OECD countries. Firstly, we conduct a cross-sectional test to check whether the data is confronted with this issue. Secondly, we conduct a panel unit root test and cointegration test to confirm whether the ARDL-based method is suitable for our data. Thirdly, we analyze the results and provide possible explanations. Lastly, we conduct a short-term causality test to detect the connection between different variables. The main conclusion of our study includes: 1) Health care is a necessity in OECD countries. 2) Environmental deterioration places a heavy burden on health care expenditure in OECD countries. 3) Health care expenditure of last year negatively affects health care expenditure. 4) There is a short-run causality relationship from CO2, economic development, and dependency rate of youth to health care expenditure in OECD countries. Related policy proposals are provided according to our analysis of the results.

Consequences of Information and Communication Technologies and Environmental Degradation on Health Expenditure

This study aims to examine how the subcomponents and overall measurement of ecological footprint, as well as the use of information and communication technologies, affect health expenditures. For this study, the sample group consisted of the top 25 countries with the highest ecological footprint for the period 2000 to 2021. System GMM estimation results demonstrate that economic growth and ecological footprint have a positive impact on health expenditures. Covid-19 dummy variables, have a statistically significant and positive effect on health expenditures. On the other hand, information and communication technologies has a statistically significant but negative effect on health expenditures. The estimation results show that the Covid-19 pandemic increased health expenditures. Looking at the effect of subcomponents of environmental degradation on health expenditures, all subcomponents have a statistically significant and positive effect on health expenditures. It is seen that the most effective variable is forest products. The variable that has almost the same impact as the footprint of forest products is the carbon footprint. Carbon footprint has significant and positive impact on health expenditures, followed by fishing grounds cropland, grazing land, built-up land. The results of the study indicate which forms of pollution should be given priority by policymakers in order to prevent an increase in health expenditure resulting from environmental degradation.

The impact of health expenditure and economic growth on CO2 in China: a quantile regression model approach

Based on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis and using Chinese provincial panel data from 2002 to 2019, this study examines how different types of healthcare expenditure and levels of economic development and energy consumption contribute to carbon emissions regionally. Considering the wide regional differences in the development levels of China, this paper uses quantile regressions and draws the following robust conclusions: (1) The EKC hypothesis was validated by all methods in eastern China. (2) The carbon emission reduction of government, private, and social health expenditure is confirmed. Furthermore, the impact of health expenditure on carbon reduction decreases from East to West. (3) Government, private, and social health expenditure all cause reductions in CO2 emissions, with private health expenditure having the largest negative effect on CO2 emissions, followed by government health expenditure and finally social health expenditure. Overall, the limited empirical work available on the impact of different kinds of health expenditure on carbon emission in the existing literature, this study greatly assists policy makers and researchers to understand the importance of health expenditure in improving environmental performance.

Impact of digital economic development and environmental pollution on residents' health: an empirical analysis based on 279 prefecture-level cities in China

BACKGROUND

The digital economy based on the internet and IT is developing rapidly in China, which makes a profound impact on urban environmental quality and residents' health activities. Thus, this study introduces environmental pollution as a mediating variable based on Grossman's health production function to explore the impact of digital economic development on the health of the population and its influence path.

METHODS

Based on the panel data of 279 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2017, this paper investigates the acting mechanism of digital economic development on residents' health by employing a combination of mediating effects model and spatial Durbin model.

RESULTS

The development of digital economy makes direct improvement on residents' health condition, which is also obtained indirectly by means of environmental pollution mitigation. Besides, from the perspective of spatial spillover effect, the development of digital economy also has a significant promoting effect on the health of adjacent urban residents, and further analysis reveals that the promoting effect in the central and western regions of China is more pronounced than that in the eastern region.

CONCLUSIONS

Digital economy can have a direct promoting effect on the health of residents, and environmental pollution has an intermediary effect between digital economy and residents' health; At the same time, there is also a regional heterogeneity among the three relationships. Therefore, this paper believes that the government should continue to formulate and implement scientific digital economy development policies at the macro and micro levels to narrow the regional digital divide, improve environmental quality and enhance the health level of residents.

Access to sustainable healthcare infrastructure: a review of industrial emissions, coal fires, and particulate matter

Environmental health is critical for the economy's social welfare and environmental sustainability. Using time series data from 1975 to 2020, the research examines the short- and long-run relationship between environmental pollutants and healthcare costs in the context of Pakistan. The study's results reveal that short-term and long-term efforts towards cleaner development in terms of carbon emissions, coal combustion, nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions, and industrial value-added have resulted in significant reductions in healthcare expenses due to improved management of industrial emissions. However, in the long run, particulate matter (PM_2.5) has a detrimental effect on a country's sustainable healthcare agenda, leading to increased healthcare costs. Furthermore, the increased use of coal-fired power plants that release polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and revenue generated by contaminated production lead to higher out-of-pocket healthcare costs, increasing a country's risk of morbidity and mortality. The study's Granger causality estimations demonstrate that carbon emissions are responsible for emissions-driven healthcare expenses in a nation. Additionally, economic growth leads to increased carbon emissions and industrial toxins, which are also emission-led. Through variance decomposition analysis (VDA), the study finds that carbon emissions have the highest variance shock of 32.702% on healthcare expenditures in the next ten years. This is followed by polluted income and continued economic growth, which have a variance shock of 13.243% and 8.858%, respectively, over the same period. The findings indicate that the maximum healthcare benefits may be acquired by mitigating environmental pollutants via stringent environmental regulations, reducing industrial toxins through solid waste management techniques, and minimizing coal combustion reliance through renewable fuels. Environmental research is still required to provide more sustainable solutions to the sustainability of the global healthcare agenda.

The impacts of the refugee population, renewable energy consumption, carbon emissions, and economic growth on health expenditure in Turkey: new evidence from Fourier-based analyses

Health expenditures are affected by different macroeconomic variables. This study aims to examine the impact of renewable energy consumption, carbon emissions, the refugee population, and economic growth on Turkey's health expenditures from 1975 to 2019. For this purpose, firstly, the stationarity orders of the variables were examined with the Fourier-based stationarity test. The long-run effects of the variables on health expenditures were also examined using the Fourier-based cointegration test. The results show that there is a long-run relationship between health expenditures and the explanatory variables. In addition, long-run coefficients were calculated, and it was concluded that carbon emissions and the refugee population increased health expenditures while renewable energy consumption decreased. The causality results indicate that there is unidirectional permanent causality from health expenditures to renewable energy consumption and economic growth and bidirectional permanent causality between carbon emissions and health expenditures. Overall, adopting environmentally and renewable energy-friendly policies and controlling the refugee population are essential policy tools in terms of health expenditures.

Environmental quality, healthcare and research and development in Saudi Arabia

While global warming and climate change associated with increasing carbon dioxide are widely seen to be one of the most serious worldwide dangers to population health, little is known regarding "how" country alters the linkage between increasing CO2 emissions and population health outcomes. Current literature on the health effects of CO2 emissions recommends various factors that may establish a more robust link, including health expenditure and research and development. Therefore, the purpose of this inquiry is to examine the effectiveness of health expenditure and R&D in improving health outcomes through reducing CO2 emissions. Using data for Saudi Arabia over the period 2000-2018, the dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) technique shows that (i) health and R&D expenditures decrease infant mortality and increase life expectancy; (ii) health and R&D expenditures reduce CO2 emissions in all the estimated models; (iii) health and R&D expenditures can improve health outcomes through reducing CO2 emissions; and (iv) health and R&D expenditures have both direct and indirect effect on health outcomes. Policy implications and limitations are also discussed.

Impact of Environmental Quality on Healthcare Expenditures in Developing Countries: A Panel Data Approach

Objective: The deterioration in environmental quality has an economic and social cost. The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of environmental factors on health expenditures in developing countries. Method: To analyze the relationship between environmental quality (air pollution and temperature) and health expenditure in thirty-three developing countries, the study uses system generalized method of moments (GMM) using data from 2000 to 2017. Results: The results suggest a positive effect of both air pollution and temperature on health expenditure. However, the effect is highest for government health expenditure, followed by private and total health expenditure in the studied countries. The results further suggest that the impact of environmental factors is greater in higher-income countries when we divide the studied countries into two groups, i.e., higher- and lower-income countries. Conclusion: Our results are interesting and informative for the policy makers to design such policies to attain better environmental quality and social well-being. The increased healthcare expenditures due to increased air pollution and climate change necessitate for an efficient, reliable, affordable and modern energy policy by emphasizing the use of clean and renewable energy in these countries that ensure better health for the masses. Furthermore, a smart and sustainable environmentally friendly economic growth policy is necessary to ensure better health for the masses.

Carbon dioxide emission and health outcomes: is there really a nexus for the Nigerian case?

Health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa are characteristically poor and Nigeria is no exception. Despite the recorded decline in infant and under five mortality rates in Nigeria, they still remain relatively high showing a poor status of the population's health. Carbon dioxide emission continues to fluctuate at high levels probably due to the increasing use of non renewable energy forms for economic activities mostly requiring energy consumption. This study examines the health consequences of environmental quality due to carbon dioxide emission in Nigeria for the period 1980 to 2016. Using two health outcome measures and decomposing carbon dioxide emission by sector and type of fuel consumed, a bound cointegration approach and an autoregressive distributed lag model were also employed. The results and a sensitivity analysis revealed that aggregate carbon dioxide emission significantly explained both infant mortality and under five mortality rates. However, when disaggregated, carbon dioxide emission from solid fuel had the greatest contribution to poor health outcomes.

Theoretical Model and Actual Characteristics of Air Pollution Affecting Health Cost: A Review

BACKGROUND

The impact of environmental pollution (such as air pollution) on health costs has received a great deal of global attention in the last 20 years.

METHODS

This review aims to summarize the theoretical analysis model of air pollution affecting health costs, and further explore the actual characteristics of the impact of air pollution on health costs. The following main databases were taken into account: Web of Science Core Collection, Medline, SCOPUS, PubMed, and CNKI (China). As of 30 March 2021, we retrieved a total of 445 papers and ended up with 52 articles.

RESULTS

This review mainly expounds clarification of the concept of air pollution and health costs, the theoretical model and the actual characteristics of air pollution affecting health costs. In addition, it also discusses other related factors affecting health costs.

CONCLUSION

Our conclusion is that, while academic research on the relationship between air pollution and health costs has made some progress, there are still some shortcomings, such as insufficient consideration of individual avoidance behavior and rural-urban and international mobility. Therefore, the simple use of the original data obtained in the statistical yearbook of the health cost caused by air pollution is also the reason for the errors in the empirical results. In addition, the choice of proxy variables of environmental pollution by scholars is relatively simple, mainly focusing on air pollutants, while the impact of water quality or soil pollution safety on health costs is becoming increasingly prominent, and will become the focus of future research.

Do renewable energy and health expenditures improve load capacity factor in the USA and Japan? A new approach to environmental issues

This study performs the augmented autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to investigate the impact of renewable energy and health expenditures on the load capacity factor in Japan and the United States of America (USA) over the period 1982-2016. The load capacity factor is obtained by dividing the biocapacity into the ecological footprint and provides a general picture of environmental quality. Thus, the study departs from the current literature by approaching environmental problems from a broader perspective. The results of this study confirm the existence of cointegration in the USA and Japan. The long-run estimates demonstrate that renewable energy and health expenditures improve environmental quality in the USA, while renewable energy has a positive but insignificant impact on load capacity factor in Japan. It has also been determined economic growth causes significant environmental degradation, which cannot be compensated by renewables and health expenditures in both countries. According to these findings, Japanese and American governments should promote green growth, support the increase in health expenditures, and diversify renewable energy sources to reduce environmental pressure.

The roles of economic growth and health expenditure on CO2 emissions in selected Asian countries: a quantile regression model approach

Continuous economic growth and the rise in energy consumption are linked with environmental pollution. Demand for health care expenditure increased after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study is interesting in modeling the nexus between public and private health expenditure, carbon dioxide emissions, and economic growth. To this end, the present study analyzed the nexus between public and private health care expenditure, economic growth, and environmental pollution for 36 Asian countries for the period 1991-2017. FMOLS, GMM, and quantile regression analysis confirm the EKC hypothesis in Asia. Besides, FMOLS and quantile regressions reached the reducing effects of government and private health expenditures on CO₂ emissions. While quantile regression results show that public and private health expenditures can mitigate CO₂ emissions; however, these results differ for various levels of CO₂. Findings of quantile regression show a significant impact of both public and private health expenditures in reducing CO₂ at the 50^th and 75^th quantiles but results are insignificant for the 25^th quantile. Overall, the paper concludes that both government and private health sectors' expenditures caused CO₂ emissions to decrease in Asia and that the negative impact of the private health sector on CO₂ emissions is greater than that of the government health sector. The concluding remark is that the higher the health spending, the higher the environmental quality will be in Asia. Hence, the health administrators need to increase public and private health expenditures with an effective cost-service and energy-efficient management approach to reach sustainable health services and a sustainable environment in Asia.

Do health infrastructure and services, aging, and environmental quality influence public health expenditures? Empirical evidence from Pakistan

Rapidly growing health expenditure is a matter of grave concern for households and governments. Every government is compelled to allocate a sufficient budget to improve people's health. This study, therefore, identifies some major factors that influence the trajectory of public health care expenditure (HCE) in Pakistan for the period 1974-2017. The ARDL-bounds test and Bayer-Hanck cointegration test consistently reveal that HCE and its specified determinants are cointegrated. Long-term estimates show that healthcare infrastructure and services, income, and environmental degradation exert a positive influence on HCE. Elderly population size has a negative association with HCE. Income elasticity is inelastic, showing that healthcare is a necessity. The findings suggest that the government must pay due attention to the fair distribution of health-related infrastructure and personnel in all regions of Pakistan.

Do health expenditure and human development index matter in the carbon emission function for ensuring sustainable development? Evidence from the heterogeneous panel

This study is an attempt to explain the nexus between health expenditures, GDP, human development index (HDI), CO₂ emissions (COEM), renewable energy (RENE), financial development (FD) and electricity consumption (EC) using data from 2000Q₁ to 2014Q₄ for Brazil, India, China and South Africa. The study applies CIPS and CADF to determine the integration order. The tests confirmed the unique order of integration. The study further uses the Westerlund panel cointegration, which suggests the existence of a long-run relationship. Moreover, the panels dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) are applied to ascertain the long-run elasticity. The health expenditure and electricity consumption affect the COEM positively. Moreover, HDI and RE affect COEM negatively. The study further confirms the existence of an N-shaped EKC in the long run. The pairwise Dumitrescu and Hurlin, Econ Model 29:1450-1460, (2012) test is used to uncover the direction of the association between the variables. The findings obtained from DH confirm a bidirectional causality between HDI and FD. Likewise, another bidirectional causal relationship has also been found between FD and EC. The findings of our study advocate policies in the direction of HDI and health expenditure by adopting RENE. This study highlights the importance of RENE, which can facilitate a reduction in carbon emissions and decreasing health expenditures. Moreover, the financial sector needs to be improved to create entrepreneurship opportunities for the public in improving the HDI in ensuring sustainable development.

Association between health expenditures, economic growth and environmental pollution: Long-run and causality analysis from Asian economies

This study examines the association between health expenditures, economic growth (EG) and environmental pollution in Asia both at panel and country level. The separate impact of EG and environmental pollution on public and private health expenditures (PRHEs) are also examined. In doing so the panel cointegration tests with the level break, common correlated effects mean group and heterogeneous panel causality test are employed. The study covers 20 Asian economies and time-period from 1995 to 2017. The results provide evidence in support of a long run association between selected variables. The results explain that EG and environmental pollution are positively associated with total health expenditures as well as with public and PRHEs in all countries. However, the magnitude of environmental pollution coefficient is greater from EG coefficient, thus indicate that environmental pollution is the key determinant in increasing national health expenditures. Causality results demonstrate the existence of two-way causality between health expenditures and EG and unidirectional causality flowing from environmental pollution to health expenditures in Asian economies. Findings of this study have provided some important suggestions to policy makers which can be used to minimize the risk of environmental pollution on health in Asian economies.

Exploring Asymmetric Nexus Between CO2 Emissions, Environmental Pollution, and Household Health Expenditure in China

Objective

This study investigates the nexus between household health expenditure, CO₂ emissions and environmental pollution in China. We analyzed the asymmetric dynamic relationship between CO₂ emissions, environmental pollution and household health expenditure for the period 1990 to 2019 in China.

Methods

This study adopted nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) and Granger causality following the diagnostic test. Furthermore, we applied Dickey-Fuller (ADF), PP unit root tests, Zivot and Andrews test for structural breaks in our analysis. The NARDL is the most suitable econometric technique for estimations, especially if the asymmetric relationship exists among the variables. NARDL technique is capable to explore the dynamic relationship between CO₂ emissions, environmental pollution and household health expenditure.

Results

The empirical results verify the asymmetric nexus between CO₂ emissions, environmental pollution and household health expenditure in the context of China. The outcomes revealed that in the short run and long run positive shocks of CO₂ emissions and environmental pollution positively affecting health expenditure, while negative shocks reduce health spendings. The results also demonstrate bi-directional causality among household health spendings, CO₂ emissions and environmental pollution.

Conclusion

Our results support many previous studies, documenting that CO₂ emissions positively contribute to the amount of household health expenditure, confirming the asymmetric relationship between CO₂ emissions and household health expenditure. The results also confirm the statistically significant and asymmetrically positive relationship between environmental pollution and household health expenditure. This implies that Chinese residents have to bear more household health expenditure, in the case of more CO₂ emissions and a greater amount of environmental pollution.

The impact of natural resources, energy consumption, and population growth on environmental quality: Fresh evidence from the United States of America

We examine the impact of the amount of natural resources, energy consumption, and population growth on the ecological footprint and CO₂ emissions using data of the United States (USA) from 1971 to 2016. In the course of this study, we developed a comprehensive empirical analysis and applied structural break Zivot-Andrews and Breakpoint ADF unit-roots tests for stationary analysis. The co-integration analysis indicates long-run relationships among the variables. Subsequent findings of the generalized method of moments (GMM), generalized linear model (GLM), and robust least-squares reveal an inverse relationship of natural resources and renewable energy consumption with the ecological footprint and CO₂ emissions, while non-renewable energy consumption, population growth, and biocapacity have a positive relationship with the ecological footprint and CO₂ emissions. Overall, our findings suggest that natural resources and renewable energy consumption improve environmental quality in the long run, while population growth and non-renewable energy consumption contribute to its deterioration. In addition, the result of pairwise Granger causality reveals that bidirectional causality runs between natural resources and CO₂ emissions and between natural resources and the ecological footprint, while unidirectional causality runs from population growth to energy consumption, the ecological footprint, and CO₂ emissions. Policymakers in the USA are encouraged to establish policies that control the excessive use of natural resources, promote sustainable lifestyles, develop energy-efficient carbon pricing, and fix the ecological budget to secure a sustainable future for the country.

Healthcare expenditure and carbon footprint in the USA: evidence from hidden cointegration approach

The priority aim of this study is to investigate the effect of carbon footprint, which is an indicator of environmental degradation, on health expenditures for the USA. In the study, cointegration analysis was performed for the period 1970-2016 by using health expenditures, carbon footprint, gross domestic product per capita and life expectancy at birth variables. According to the results of standard cointegration analysis, only cointegration relationship between health expenditures and income was found. In the models with carbon footprint, no cointegration relationship was discovered between the original values of the variables. This result was approached with suspicion, and it was thought that there might be a hidden cointegration between healthcare expenditures and carbon footprint. For this purpose, the hidden cointegration analysis and crouching error correction model proposed by Granger and Yoon [18] were employed among the positive and negative components of the variables of healthcare expenditures and carbon footprint. The results of the hidden cointegration analysis revealed that there was a hidden cointegration relationship between the positive components of healthcare expenditures and the positive components of carbon footprint. Analysis results show that a 1% increase in carbon footprint will cause a 2.04% increase in healthcare expenditures in the long term in the USA. When the positive components of the variables were considered, it was concluded that there was a one-way long-term asymmetric causality relationship between carbon footprint and healthcare expenditures. As a result of the study, it was proposed that the carbon footprint should be diminished to prevent the increasing burden of the healthcare expenditures on the budget.

Is Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emission an Important Factor Affecting Healthcare Expenditure? Evidence from China, 2005-2016

As a result of China’s economic growth, air pollution, including carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission, has caused serious health problems and accompanying heavy economic burdens on healthcare. Therefore, the effect of carbon dioxide emission on healthcare expenditure (HCE) has attracted the interest of many researchers, most of which have adopted traditional empirical methods, such as ordinary least squares (OLS) or quantile regression (QR), to analyze the issue. This paper, however, attempts to introduce Bayesian quantile regression (BQR) to discuss the relationship between carbon dioxide emission and HCE, based on the longitudinal data of 30 provinces in China (2005–2016). It was found that carbon dioxide emission is, indeed, an important factor affecting healthcare expenditure in China, although its influence is not as great as the income variable. It was also revealed that the effect of carbon dioxide emission on HCE at a higher quantile was much smaller, which indicates that most people are not paying sufficient attention to the correlation between air pollution and healthcare. This study also proves the applicability of Bayesian quantile regression and its ability to offer more valuable information, as compared to traditional empirical tools, thus expanding and deepening research capabilities on the topic.

Efficiency of the EU Environmental Policy in Struggling with Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5): How Agriculture Makes a Difference?

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions are an important global issue as air pollutants lead to approximately 7 million deaths per year (World Health Organization). In an attempt to combat this global threat, countries in the European Union (EU) allocate relatively large funds for environmental policies. The main goal of this paper is to assess the long-term efficiency of the EU countries’ environmental policy in reducing the pressure of particulates pollution on the natural environment. For this purpose, multilevel panel regression models based on seminal within–between specification are used. The models are run for a panel of 25 EU countries for the years 2004–2016. In the investigations, we tried to capture the effect of the share of utilized agricultural area (UAA) in non-urban areas of the analyzed countries, as it may potentially influence policy efficiency. It was found that environmental spending in all main categories (pollution abatement, biodiversity, R&D, and environmental protection) had a significant impact on decreasing pollution pressure; however, the policy was more efficient in countries which had a lower share of UAA in their non-urban areas. The study emphasized that the impact of “pollution abatement” expenditure may be underestimated in basic panel models.

An empirical model on the impact of foreign direct investment on China's environmental pollution: analysis based on simultaneous equations

This paper analyses the link between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth and their subsequent impact on environmental pollution in China. The simultaneous equation method was used with data from 31 provinces in China covering the period between 1995 and 2016. The findings indicate that the effect of FDI on economic growth, industrial structure, and environmental pollution control positively impacts on China's industrial pollution control and environmental conditions, implying that China should encourage foreign capital investments that come with advanced production technology and green production processes. This will enhance efficient resource utilization, adherence to environmental standards, and ensuring sustainable economic development.