Abstract
Financial development is vital to enhance the inclusive growth of a country in the modern world, and environmental quality, affected by financial development, is also a highly debated topic. Thus, this study attempts to investigate the role of financial development in determining environmental quality in Sri Lanka considering other variables namely economic growth, energy consumption, trade openness, and foreign direct investments. The key econometric tool used for the purpose is the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach with the data from 1992 to 2021. As per the findings, financial development, economic growth, energy consumption, and foreign direct investments adversely impact environmental quality both in the long-run and short-run. Additionally, trade openness established a negative impact in the short-run only. Importantly, the Environmental Kuznets’ Curve (EKC) hypothesis and Pollution Haven Hypothesis are established. Finally, all variables except trade openness confirmed a unidirectional causal relationship with environmental quality. This study recommends that all the modelled variables are vital to enrich the environmental quality in Sri Lanka.
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Data availability
The data of all variables are collected from the World Bank database, Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) database, and Central Bank’s annual reports. These data are freely and publicly available. The complete structured data set used for the study may be supplied by the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
Sri Lanka – Energy Sector Assessment, Strategy, and Road Map, ADB Bank, 2019
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Appendix 1
Appendix 1
Trend lines of dependent variable and financial development proxies in Sri Lanka
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Wijethunga, A.W.G.C.N., Rahman, M.M. & Dayaratne, D.A.I. The effect of financial development on environmental quality: a developing country evidence. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 121239–121252 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30844-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30844-7