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Exploring a new perspective of sustainable development drive through environmental Phillips curve in the case of the BRICST countries

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Abstract

Considering that the rigor of economic activities has widely been linked with the turbulent nature of the increasing global atmospheric and environmental hazards thus hampering environmental sustainability, it then presented a suggestive dilemma realizing that increasing unemployment, i.e., de-economizing human activities posit a desirable environmental quality effect. Given this backdrop, and employing the more recent estimation techniques, the current study probes the validity of the novel environmental Phillips curve (i.e., negative relationship between unemployment and environmental degradation) opined by Kashem and Rahman (Environ Sci Pollut Res 1–18, 2020). In this case, the panel of BRICST (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and Turkey) economies for the selected data set over the experimental period 1992-2016 is analyzed. After using related approaches that are designed to account for probable country-specific factors, i.e., the cross-sectional dependence concern, the findings from the PMG-ARDL model affirmed the validity of the environmental Phillips curve for the BRICST countries. Thus, there is a significant trade-off between unemployment and environmental degradation. Moreover, this study concludes that renewable energy consumption improves the environmental quality, while conventional energy sources remained detrimental factors to environmental quality in the panel of the examined countries. Therefore, the study identified that the share of renewable energy in the energy mix should be escalated to improve environmental quality and maintain or improve the employment level, thus advancing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the BRICST countries.

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Abbreviations

EKC:

environmental Kuznets curve

PMG-ARDL:

pooled mean group-autoregressive distributed lags

GDP:

gross domestic product

ENE:

non-renewable energy consumption

REN:

renewable energy consumption

POP:

population

UNE:

unemployment

CD:

cross-sectional dependence

BRICST:

Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Turkey

EPC:

environmental Phillips curve

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Administration, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an, China

    Muhammad Khalid Anser

  2. University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX, USA

    Nicholas Apergis

  3. National Tariff Commission, Ministry of Commerce, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Qasim Raza Syed

  4. Department of Economics and Finance, Istanbul Gelisim University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Andrew Adewale Alola

Authors
  1. Muhammad Khalid Anser
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  2. Nicholas Apergis
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  3. Qasim Raza Syed
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  4. Andrew Adewale Alola
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Contributions

1- M.K. Anser: conceptualization and data analysis

2- Q.R.Syed: drafting

3- N. Apergis: supervision

4- A. A. Alola: drafting and evaluation

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Correspondence to Qasim Raza Syed.

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Anser, M.K., Apergis, N., Syed, Q.R. et al. Exploring a new perspective of sustainable development drive through environmental Phillips curve in the case of the BRICST countries. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 48112–48122 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14056-5

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