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Urbanization, regime type and durability, and environmental degradation in Ghana

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Abstract

This study examines the effect of urbanization, income, trade openness, and institutional quality (i.e., regime type and durability) on environmental degradation in Ghana over the period 1965–2011. Using the bounds test approach to cointegration and the Fully Modified Phillip-Hansen (FMPH) technique, the findings show that urbanization, income, trade openness, and institutional quality have long-run cointegration with environmental degradation. Further, the results show that income, trade openness, and institutional quality are negatively associated with environmental degradation. This suggests that income, trade openness, and institutional quality enhance environmental performance. Urbanization, however, is positively related to environmental degradation. Additionally, long-run estimates conditioned on institutional quality reveal that the extent to which trade openness and urbanization enhance environmental performance is largely due to the presence of quality institutions (or democratic institutions). Finally, controlling for structural breaks, we find that trade openness, urbanization, and regime type (i.e., democracy) improve environmental performance significantly after the 1970s except for income.

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Notes

  1. Readers interested in the full description of the FMPH method should see the original article by Phillips and Hansen (1990).

  2. We do not take the natural logarithm of Institutional quality because it takes on non-positive integers.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, GIMPA School of Public Service and Governance, AH 50, Achimota, Accra, Ghana

    Samuel Adams

  2. Department of Banking and Finance, University of Professional Studies, Accra, Ghana

    Philip Kofi Adom

  3. Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Business School, Accra, Ghana

    Edem Kwame Mensah Klobodu

Authors
  1. Samuel Adams
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  2. Philip Kofi Adom
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  3. Edem Kwame Mensah Klobodu
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Correspondence to Samuel Adams.

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This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

Appendix

Appendix

Table 13 Diagnostic test for model with polity2
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Table 14 Diagnostic test for model with RD
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Adams, S., Adom, P.K. & Klobodu, E.K.M. Urbanization, regime type and durability, and environmental degradation in Ghana. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 23825–23839 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-7513-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-7513-4

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