Examining the interaction of technology adoption-diffusion and sectoral emission intensity in developing and emerging countries

This study offers a new perspective on the drivers of environmental sustainability for sector level (manufacturing, mining, agriculture, business, trade, and transport) analysis. In this case, country-level sectoral dynamic index for technology adoption and emission intensity were constructed to study the environmental efficiency effect of technology adoption and technology diffusion across tradable and non-tradable sectors by using empirical illustration for 49 developing and emerging countries during 1990-2018 period. By correcting for potential bias arising from endogeneity and cross-border spillover effects via cross-section dependence, results reveal long-term effects of technological changes. Importantly, it is shown that the environmental efficiency effect of technology adoption holds in technology-intensive sectors (i.e manufacturing, mining, agriculture) only at lower capitalization levels, thus establishing a U-shaped nexus of technology adoption and carbon emission. Additionally, it is found that trade networks reduce emission intensities by improving technology diffusion across all the tradable sectors and in transport sector. Moreover, trade alone mitigates carbon intensity across all the sectors while income per capita spur carbon intensity in the tradable sectors. From policy insight, the study identifies the need for stricter policy directives to scale up energy and clean technologies adoption in all sector activities.publishedVersio

Towards unlocking sustainable land consumption in sub-Saharan Africa : Analysing spatio-temporal variation of built-up land footprint and its determinants

A systematic understanding of the dynamics of land consumption is extremely important for human well-being and especially vital for the ecological balance of the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region. Remarkable land use/land cover changes due to climate change, urbanization, and food demand have affected the spatio-temporal dynamics of built-up land footprints (BLFs) in SSA. By using spatial econometric techniques, this study investigates the spatio-temporal evolution and key drivers of built-up land footprints in 28 SSA countries from 2000 to 2017. Our results show how an appropriate consideration of the role of spatial effects can shed new insights into the convergence process of built-up land footprints. Foremost, the study reveals significant evidence of both absolute and conditional convergence in BLFs over the experimental period. Additionally, the estimation indicates that biocapacity plays an important role in cutting built-up land footprints in SSA countries as there was a faster conditional convergence in countries with higher biocapacity. Moreover, the study outlined that the promotion of globalization and urbanization draws more pressure on the built-up environment and makes it challenging to reduce BLFs in SSA. In addition, this study found evidence for an inverted U-shaped nexus between per capita built-up land footprints and per capita gross domestic product (GDP), supporting the prediction of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis.© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

The quantile dependence of the stock returns of “clean” and “dirty” firms on oil demand and supply shocks

© 2021 Elsevier B.V.The paper examines the degree to which firms' stock returns in the energy and technology sectors depend on oil demand and supply shocks by accounting for quantile dependence in shock transmission and causal linkages. Using monthly time-series data from January 2004 to December 2017, our evidence shows that the substitution between oil and clean commodities occurs only in the long-run when the oil market is subject to demand-driven shocks. Unlike oil demand shocks, we demonstrate that oil supply shocks display a relatively lower predictive power for the clean energy stock returns. We also report that firms in the dirty energy sectors display lower returns mainly due to their exposure to exogenous oil shocks, while firms in clean energy and technology sectors are more resilient to demand shocks as their exhibit positive returns in the long-run. Our findings provide evidence and guidance about investments opportunities in clean assets

Cyclical drivers of fiscal policy in sub-Saharan Africa: New insights from the time-varying heterogeneity approach

© 2021 Economic Society of Australia, QueenslandWe extend the topical literature on the cyclical behavior of fiscal policy in developing countries subject to terms of trade cycles by applying the interactive fixed effects model that allow for unobserved time-varying heterogeneity in the impact of fundamentals. Based on a sample of 20 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 1985 to 2017, our results support existing evidence about developing countries that fiscal policy is pro-cyclical in SSA countries. Whereas this pro-cyclicality is valid for government spending and fiscal balance, government revenue is slightly counter-cyclical. We also find that the pro-cyclicality of government expenditure and fiscal balance escalates during episodes of terms of trade booms. Our results make a strong case for the support of the pivotal role of Sovereign Wealth Funds, access to international financial markets, and flexible exchange rate regimes in reversing the pro-cyclical behavior of fiscal policy

Threshold cointegration, nonlinearity, and frequency domain causality relationship between stock price and Turkish Lira

Modelling complex asymmetric effects and non-linear relationships between exchange rate and stock prices has challenged classical econometric methods. This study contributes to the relative literature in the following distinct ways. First, we follow a variety of econometric approaches in order to characterize the complex dynamic co-movements between Turkish stock market and exchange rate from January 2003 to December 2018. Secondly, we show that the evidence for asymmetric threshold cointegration in Turkey's financial market can be hidden by following linear time series methodologies. Thirdly, it is also worth noting that the real effective exchange rate, USD-Turkish lira exchange rates, money supply and interest rates have large predictive power for stock price fluctuations at various frequencies. Building on these insights, we claim that asymmetry (nonlinearity) is particularly important in Turkey's financial market because it shows the need for a new pattern of policy measures to prevent financial market crisis risk in Turkey

Human well-being versus ecological footprint in MENA countries: A trade-off?

How to improve environmental quality and achieve human development remains major sustainability issues, particularly in the MENA region (the Middle East and North Africa). Most of the empirical literature fails to consider human well-being and environmental quality together although these concepts are fundamentally similar in their concern for distributive justice. This inquiry uses panel data for 13 MENA countries over the period 1990-2016 to examine the association between human development and ecological footprint and test whether trade-off nexus holds between these two sustainability-based indicators. To increase the policy relevance of this inquiry, the MENA region is divided into two sub-groups of countries: seven oil exporting countries and six non-oil exporting countries. The highlights pointed out the presence of a strong trade-off between the ecological footprint and human well-being captured by human development index for the whole sample and across the two subsamples. The crucial role played by economic institutions may help the MENA countries to mitigate the trade-offs to achieve simultaneously both targets of human well-being and environmental protection. Our empirical insights have important implications for achieving human development sustainability through the pursuit of the individual SDG targets

A MULTIVARIATE CAUSALITY ANALYSIS OF ECONOMIC GROWTHAND ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION IN TURKEY

This study investigates how stock market prices react to oil prices and money supply shocks in Turkey using a nonlinear ARDL approach. We establishthe time series properties of the data using both conventional linear unit root tests and the procedure advanced by Zivot and Andrews (1992) to considerthe possible existence of endogenous break in the series. Empirical evidence revealed asymmetric cointegration through Wald statistics of Pesaran andBanerjee. Findings suggest asymmetric responses of Turkish stock market prices to oil prices and money supply shocks, confirming the importance ofnon-linearity in macro-finance variables. Namely, in the long-run, we find a significant negative relation between oil prices and stock market prices.Meanwhile, stock market prices react positively to negative (positive) shocks in money supply. The obtained evidence of the asymmetric behaviorsof stock prices should be taken into account by stock market participants when dealing with their portfolio diversification strategies.</p