Energy Consumption, CO2 Emissions, and Tourist Arrivals to Small Island Economies Dependent on Tourism [Academic poster]

In less than two decades, the global tourism industry has overtaken the construction industry as one of the bigger polluters, accounting for up to 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, research into the causal link between emissions and the tourism industry have increased significantly focusing extensively on top earners from the industry. However, few studies have thoroughly assessed this relationship for small island economies dependent on tourism. Hence, this study assessed the causal relationship between CO2 emissions, real GDP per capita (RGDP) and the tourism industry. The analysis is conducted for seven tourism-dependent countries for the period 1995 to 2014 using panel VAR approach. Unit root tests confirms all variables are stationary at first difference. Our VAR granger causality/block exogeneity Wald tests results show that a unidirectional causality flowing from tourism to CO2 emission, RGDP, and energy consumption, but a bi-directional causality exists between tourism and urbanization. This implies that in countries that depend on tourism, the behavior of CO2 emission, RGDP, and energy consumption can be predicted by the volume of tourist arrivals, but not the other way around. The impulse response analysis also shows that the responses of tourism to shocks in CO2 appear negative within the 1st year, positive within the 2nd and 3rd year but revert to equilibrium in the fourth year. Finally, the reaction of tourism to shocks in energy consumption is similar to its reaction to shocks in RGDP. Tourism responds positively to shocks in urbanization throughout the periods. Consequently, this study draws important energy and tourism policy implications

An empirical assessment of electricity consumption and environmental degradation in the presence of economic complexities

To a large extent, the theories and concepts behind the effect of ecological footprint have been the paramount concern of the recent literature. Since the rising and falling of environmental degradation have been a continuous issue since the first phase of development, determinants such as economic complexity may play a critical role in achieving long-term sustainable development in the framework of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) paradigm. Therefore, this research expands on the notion of an EKC paradigm for the world’s top ten most complex economies by considering four variables, such as real GDP per capita, electricity consumption, trade openness, and a new putative factor of environmental obstacle, the economic complexity index (ECI). This is one of the first studies to look at the impact of ECI on the ecological footprint of a specific sample from 1998 to 2017. The findings demonstrate a continuous inverted U-shaped link between real GDP per capita, the square of real GDP per capita, and ecological footprint. The EKC hypothesis is found to be valid in the long term in the examined complex economies. The findings of the panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) of the pooled mean group (PMG) and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) estimations demonstrate that in the long term, electric power usage contributed to the carbon footprints. Furthermore, the economic complexity index and trade openness increase environmental performance over time. To determine if there is causation between the variables, we employ the panel vector error correction model (VECM) framework. Particularly, the results show unidirectional causality running from electric power consumption to ecological footprint and bidirectional causal relationship between (1) economic growth and ecological footprint; (2) square of economic growth and ecological footprint; (3) economic complexity index and ecological footprint; and (4) trade openness and ecological footprint. © 2022, The Author(s)

does fiscal rule matter?

Thesis(Master) --KDI School:Master of Development Policy,2017For growth prospects, many oil dependent countries prepare their budget based on revenue from sales of crude oil. A number of studies have focused extensively on the relationship between growth and deficits, however, while controlling for other variables, the research investigated oil rent’s effect on fiscal balance in the presence of fiscal rules for oil dependent economies, and for selected net oil exporting countries, while controlling for the effects of some macroeconomic, budgetary, and political variables, such as government size, interest rate, unemployment rate, inflation rate, real GDP per capita, debt-to-GDP ratio, and control of corruption. The study relied on the strengths of past studies like those of Mika Tujula and Guido Wolswijk (2004) by establishing the specific effects of oil rents for crude oil endowed economies, as one of the main determinants of fiscal balance. This establishes the importance of oil rents, amongst other previously identified macroeconomic, budgetary, and political covariates. Thus, we have attempted to overcome the shortcomings of studies that make generalized conclusions for the main determinants of fiscal balance for all countries, without highlighting specific variables that takes a huge chunk of the effects for specific natural resource endowed economies. Given large macroeconomic panel dataset, our empirical analysis solved the possibility of endogeneity, simultaneity bias and unobserved heterogeneity of oil rents and fiscal balance by the main econometric technique i.e. using an instrumental variable approach based on Dynamic Panel estimators or the General Method of Moment (GMM). This is used in comparison with estimations from pooled OLS, LSDV fixed effects, and the IV/2SLS techniques (using each country’s share of world output as instrument). Our pre-estimation diagnostics showed that the GMM approach may not be applicable to the small sample, and we suspected that the IV/2SLS method may also be weak in testing our hypothesis for the oil dependent economies with N = 20 and T = 16, and therefore we maintained the LSDV Fixed effects estimations as our main result for this category of sample countries selected. We also utilized the Drisc/Kraay standard errors, as well as the robust standard errors, which are standard errors robust to cross-sectional dependence and heteroskedasticity of unknown forms respectively, that exists in large macroeconomic panel data where N > T. Our estimation results shows that in countries with fiscal rules, there is insignificant reaction of fiscal balance to changes in oil rents shocks, and the impact is weak. We find also that welfare spending, which was captured by the real GDP per capita, affects fiscal balance, and so does the budgetary variable, i.e. debt-to-GDP ratio, and the ability of the government to curb corruption and mismanagement of funds, which is politically motivated.1 INTRODUCTION 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 3 METHODOLOGY AND DATA 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 5 CONCLUSION 6 APPENDICESOutstandingmasterpublishedFatai Festus ADEDOYIN

Modeling the nexus between coal consumption, FDI inflow and economic expansion: does industrialization matter in South Africa?

This study examines the role of industrialization in the energy-growth-FDI nexus for the case of South Africa using data over the period 1970 to 2018. The empirical exercise was conducted using Pesaran Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach. To accomplish our study objective, we analyze stationarity properties of the series using the unit root test after which we applied Bayer-Hanck (B-H) combined technique to cointegration to assess whether a long-run relationship exists among the series. Empirical results show that a 1% change in FDI account for 0.002% and 0.013% increase in economic expansion in the short- and long- run respectively. Also, a 1% increase in coal consumption influence GDP negatively by 0.083% and 0.207% in the short- and long- run respectively. Furthermore, a 1% increase in total natural resource rent positively affects GDP by 0.02% and 0.05% respectively in the short- and long- run. Industrialization, on the other hand, demonstrates a positive and significant impact on the economic growth process both in the short and long run. Industrialization contributes 0.506% and 1.274% to economic expansion both in the short and long run respectively. The causality tests suggest that a one-way causal link running from FDI to industrialization, and from industrialization to coal consumption exists. Finally, FDI inflow drives Total Natural Resource rents in South Africa. This study also gives reliable growth and energy policy proposals to policymakers applicable to countries around the globe

Smart Tourism via Digital Governance: A case for Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes

In order to establish policies that promote sustainable tourism, while selling out Korea’s local culture and products, there is a need to highlight the roles played by smart city prospects and digital governance. This paper focuses on Jeju Island and draws on its rich cultural and natural heritage for policy and to understand tourism and regional value creation by the community and other stakeholders. This paper hinges on existing (OECD, 2016) framework, which considers digital governance as a co-evolutionary process that connects public governance and public sector innovation. This paper contributes to theory and practice of tourism by highlighting Jeju’s efforts to place digital services at the core of government operations and tourism service delivery on the Island. The paper uses the case study research methodology to extend knowledge on strategies and frameworks of digital governance, and applies this framework to tourism strategies in Jeju Island. Since there are complexities embedded in using smart tourism as avenues for global tourism attractions in small regions, the research theoretically sheds light on existing trends in smart tourism, and then present policy directions and recommendations for each stakeholder

Modelling the interaction between Tourism, Energy Consumption, Pollutant Emissions and Urbanization: Renewed Evidence from Panel VAR.

In less than two decades, the global tourism industry has overtaken the construction industry as one of the bigger polluters, accounting for up to 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions as reported by the United National World Trade Organization (UNWTO, 2018). This position resonates the consensus of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Consequently, research into the causal link between emissions and the tourism industry has increased significantly focusing extensively on top earners from the industry. However, few studies have thoroughly assessed this relationship for small island economies dependent on tourism. Hence, this study assessed the causal relationship between CO2 emissions, real GDP per capita (RGDP) and the tourism industry. The analysis is conducted for seven tourism-dependent countries for the period 1995 to 2014 using a panel VAR approach, with support from FMOLS and PMG-ARDL models. Unit root tests confirm all variables are stationary at first difference. Our VAR Granger causality/block exogeneity Wald tests results show that a unidirectional causality flowing from tourism to CO2 emission, RGDP, and energy consumption, but a bi-directional causality exists between tourism and urbanization. This implies that in countries that depend on tourism, the behaviour of CO 2 emission, RGDP, and energy consumption can be predicted by the volume of tourist arrivals, but not the other way around. The impulse response analysis also shows that the responses of tourism to shocks in CO 2 appear negative within the 1 st year, positive within the 2nd and 3rd year but revert to equilibrium in the 4th year. Finally, the reaction of tourism to shocks in energy consumption is similar to its reaction to shocks in RGDP. Tourism responds positively to shocks in urbanization throughout the periods. These outcomes where resonated by the Dumitrescu and Hurlin causality analysis where the growth induced-tourism hypothesis is validated as well as feedback causality observed between tourism and pollutant emission, urbanization and pollutant emission in the blocs over the sampled period. Consequently, this study draws pertinent energy and tourism policy implications for sustainable tourism on the panel over their growth trajectory without compromise for a green environment.Keywords: Energy Consumption; GDP; Tourism; Impulse response; Variance decomposition

Does Globalization in Turkey Induce Increased Energy Consumption: Insights into its Environmental Pros and Cons

Globalization is the paradigm shift to a more integrated world economy broadly shaping economies and societies around the globe. The wave of globalization is much more eminent on its impact on increased energy demand, knowledge and technology transfer, trade and financial capital flows. The present study focuses on Turkey a fast-emerging economy that is no exception to the wave of globalization. This current study explores the dynamics between ecological footprints, energy consumption and real income level for the case of Turkey in a carbon-income function while accounting for other co-variate like globalization to avoid omitted variable bias. The study data spans from 1970-2017 on an annual frequency basis. The Stationarity properties of the outlined variables were investigated. Subsequently, the equilibrium relationship between the variables is confirmed by the battery of recent robust estimation techniques. while to detect the causality of direction among the variables the Modified Wald test causality test is utilized. This study reveals that an increase in energy consumption in Turkey reduces environmental pollution by a magnitude of 0.37% in the short run and 0.43% long run. While an increase in economic expansion dampens the quality of the environment 0.42% and 0.72% on both a short and long-run basis. This is indicative given that Turkey is more energy conscious and energy-efficient while a positive statistically significant relationship is observed between real income level and ecological footprint and globalization index. The causality analysis also supports the growth-induced energy consumption hypothesis. The study further offers policy direction for the energy sector in Turkey in the face of global interconnectedness

An Investigation into the Role of Tourism Growth, Conventional Energy Consumption and Real Income on Ecological Footprint Nexus in France

Previously documented studies in the literature on how tourism leads to economic growth in the form of tourism-led growth hypotheses (TLGH) has been investigated. This study presents a new perspective on the growth of tourism by considering its impact on conventional energy consumption, real income level, and emission via the channel of globalization. Sequences of econometric tests were conducted to validate the hypothesized claims between tourism development and growth impact on conventional energy consumption and pollution proxy by ecological footprints, globalization GDP per capita, biocapacity, and tourists for the case of France. Empirical evidence from the Granger causality test presents a uni-directionalcausality from ecological footprints to GDP per capita and from biocapacity to ecological footprints. The correlation matrix shows interrelation amongst series with biocapacity significantly correlating with ecological footprints with tourist’s arrival having a positive correlation with ecological footprints and a negative one with biocapacity. GPD per capita was found to positively affect the ecological footprints and have a negative correlation with biocapacity and a significant relationship with tourists' arrivals. Additionally, globalization exerts a positive impact on ecological footprints, and its effect on biocapacity was found to be negative although globalization's effect on tourists’ arrivals and per capita GDP is significant. The ARDL estimation indicated biocapacity as a neutral agent for ecological footprints, tourist arrivals having a negative impact on ecological footprints, and globalization significantly affecting ecological footprints. From these findings, it is evident that tourism growth has a significant impact on energy consumption and pollution. Policy recommendations were also provided in this study accordingl

The role of income, trade, and environmental regulations in ensuring environmental sustainability in MINT countries: Evidence from ecological footprint

Income alone cannot ensure environmental sustainability. As such, different economies have relied on environmental regulations to preserve the quality of their environment. The efficiency of such regulations on environmental degradation is still unclear in developing countries culpable for lax environmental regulations. As such, this study applies the Prais-Winsten regression, along with the Driscoll-Kraay panel-corrected standard errors approach to explores the effects of environmental regulations on the ecological footprint (EFP) in MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey) countries from 1980-2016. The results suggest that energy consumption, trade and GDP increase the EFP while environmental regulations reduce it thereby mitigating environmental degradation, though insignificantly. This indicates that environmental regulations are not totally successful in mitigating ecological distortions in MINT countries. The study applies the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) estimator to obtain the country-wise results. There is evidence that energy consumption increases the EFP in all the countries. The same influence is exacted by trade on the EFP, except in Turkey. The abating role of environmental regulations on environmental degradation were confirmed in all the countries. It was significant in Nigeria and Turkey, but not in Mexico and Indonesia. Further findings revealed a bidirectional causality between GDP and EFP. A one-way causality flows from trade to energy consumption, and from energy consumption and EFP to environmental regulations. Policy directions are discussed within the framework of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)