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Convergence in ecological footprint across the member states of ECOWAS: evidence from a novel panel unit root test

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Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the convergence in ecological footprint per capita across the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) countries from 1968 to 2017. For this aim, we apply a panel Fourier threshold unit root test recently proposed by Yilanci et al. (2021). This methodology considers both multiple smooth structural changes and nonlinearity, which allows us to get more reliable results. The results of the study support the evidence of nonlinearity for the series, so we test the null of divergence in a nonlinear framework. Since test statistics are statistically significant, we conclude that there is global convergence for the sample. Besides, we find that the type of convergence is absolute, which supports the view that the ecological footprint of the ECOWAS countries will equalize in the long run, and the emission allocation policies should be given priority by policymakers.

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Data availability

The data used in this study is available on the “Global Footprint Network” website.

Notes

  1. See Johnson and Papageorgiou (2020) for a recent survey of convergence literature. The convergence hypothesis has been also tested beyond per capita income such as house prices (Ganioğlu and Seven 2021, consumer prices (Aginta 2021, happiness (Apergis and Georgellis 2015, labor productivity (Mendez and Kataoka 2021), and public debt (Akram and Rath 2019.

  2. Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo.

  3. \(N\) indicates the country, while \(i\) stands for lag length.

  4. To check the robustness of the findings, we also consider 0.10 and 0.05; however, the results remain the same.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Faculty of Political Science, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, 17100, Merkez, Çanakkale, Turkey

    Veli Yilanci

  2. Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University, 67100, İncivez, Zonguldak, Turkey

    Uğur Ursavaş & Neslihan Ursavaş

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  1. Veli Yilanci
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  2. Uğur Ursavaş
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  3. Neslihan Ursavaş
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Contributions

Veli Yilanci: conceptualization, methodology, software, writing – review and editing. Ugur Ursavas: data collection, conceptualization, methodology, writing – review and editing. Neslihan Ursavas: conceptualization, methodology, writing – review and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Uğur Ursavaş.

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Fig. 2
figure 2

The EF series of ECOWAS countries

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Yilanci, V., Ursavaş, U. & Ursavaş, N. Convergence in ecological footprint across the member states of ECOWAS: evidence from a novel panel unit root test. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 79241–79252 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21441-1

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