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Investigating the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis: does government effectiveness matter? Evidence from 170 countries

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Abstract

The lack of studies that examined the influence of government effectiveness on environmental pollution and whether it formulates the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis motivated this research. Therefore, this research examines the role of government effectiveness on CO2 emission in 170 countries. To achieve the research aims, the system generalized method of moment model is applied while categorizing the countries into three groups: namely high, moderate, and low government effectiveness countries. The major results of this research revealed that government effectiveness reduces CO2 emission significantly in the overall sample, high and the moderate government effectiveness countries while it is not significant in the low government effectiveness countries. Moreover, the EKC hypothesis is present in the overall sample high and moderate government effectiveness countries while the hypothesis does not exist in the low government effectiveness countries. Therefore, the outcome of this research shows clearly that effectiveness of the government in terms of independence from political pressures, the quality of policy preparation and application, and the reliability of the government's commitment to such policies is an important element that determines the EKC hypothesis. From the outcome of this research, a number of policy implications were provided for the investigated countries.

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Data and materials availability

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. For more details about other components of this index, see https://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/

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Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Business, Sohar University, Sohar, Oman

    Usama Al-Mulali

  2. School of Business, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia

    Hassan F. Gholipour

  3. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Jalan Broga, 43500, Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

    Sakiru Adebola Solarin

Authors
  1. Usama Al-Mulali
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  2. Hassan F. Gholipour
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  3. Sakiru Adebola Solarin
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Correspondence to Usama Al-Mulali.

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Appendix

Appendix

See Tables

Table 2 OLS, Fixed effects and first difference GMM Estimator CO2 as the dependent variable for all countries
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2,

Table 3 OLS, Fixed effects and first difference GMM Estimator CO2 as the dependent variable for high government effectiveness index countries
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3,

Table 4 OLS, Fixed effects and first difference GMM Estimator CO2 as the dependent variable for moderate government effectiveness index countries
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4 and

Table 5 OLS, Fixed effects and first difference GMM Estimator CO2 as the dependent variable for low government effectiveness index countries
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5

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Al-Mulali, U., Gholipour, H.F. & Solarin, S.A. Investigating the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis: does government effectiveness matter? Evidence from 170 countries. Environ Dev Sustain 24, 12740–12755 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01962-4

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