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The impact of age structure on carbon emission in the Middle East: the panel autoregressive distributed lag approach

  • Globalization and Environmental Problems in Developing Countries
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Abstract

Rapid evolution in the population age structure of the Middle East countries has major economic, social, and environmental outcomes. Therefore, to fill the gap in the previous literatures, in this study, the effect of age structure on environmental degradation was investigated in the Middle East region. To achieve this goal, a panel data of 10 Middle East countries were examined over the period of 1990 to 2014. Moreover, the carbon dioxide emission per capita was used as an environmental pollution index in this study. According to the stationary property of the variables, small sample size data, and the assumptions of the model, the panel autoregressive distributed lag method of mean group, pooled mean group, and dynamic fixed effect estimators were investigated in this study. The empirical results implied that the pooled mean group model emerged as the most efficient among the three estimators. Also, results revealed that the age structure have a significant relationship with environmental pollution. Children and working age population have a positive elasticity, whereas elderly people have negative elasticity. Furthermore, the results showed that the working age population has the greatest explanatory power on the carbon emissions. Also, the relationship between per capita energy consumption and gross domestic product per capita with air pollution was positive. Overall, the empirical results showed that any attempt to decrease carbon dioxide emissions in the Middle East region should consider the population age structure.

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Abbreviations

BHR:

Bahrain

CO2 :

Carbon dioxide

CPR:

Cyprus

DFE:

Dynamic fixed effect

EGY:

Egypt

GDP:

Gross domestic product

GHGs:

Greenhouse gases

I(0):

Integrated at level

I(1):

Integrated of order one

IPS:

Im, Pesarn, and Shin

IRI:

Islamic Republic of Iran

IRQ:

Iraq

JOR:

Jordan

LBN:

Lebanon

LLC:

Levin, Lin, and Chu

MENA:

Middle East and North Africa

MG:

Mean group

OECD:

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

Panel ARDL:

Panel autoregressive distributed lag

PMG:

Pooled mean group

SAU:

Saudi Arabia

STIRPAT:

Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology

TUR:

Turkey

UAE:

United Arab Emirates

UN:

United Nation

WDI:

World Bank Development Indicators

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr. Amirmohsen Behjat (Assistant Professor in Healthcare Administration & Public Health, Husson University, United States) for his comments, suggestions, and proofreading the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Economics, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

    Mohammad Hassan Tarazkar & Navid Kargar Dehbidi

  2. Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Cag University, Mersin, Turkey

    Ilhan Ozturk

  3. Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Ilhan Ozturk

  4. Department of Finance, Asia University, 500, Lioufeng Rd., Wufeng, Taichung, 41354, Taiwan

    Ilhan Ozturk

  5. Faculty of Business, Multimedia University, 75450, Melaka, Malaysia

    Usama Al-mulali

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  1. Mohammad Hassan Tarazkar
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  2. Navid Kargar Dehbidi
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  3. Ilhan Ozturk
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  4. Usama Al-mulali
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Correspondence to Ilhan Ozturk.

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Tarazkar, M.H., Dehbidi, N.K., Ozturk, I. et al. The impact of age structure on carbon emission in the Middle East: the panel autoregressive distributed lag approach. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 33722–33734 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-08880-4

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