Abstract
This study investigates how information and communication technology (ICT) complements globalisation in order to influence CO2 emissions in 44 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2000–2012. ICT is measured with internet penetration and mobile phone penetration whereas globalisation is designated in terms of trade and financial openness. The empirical evidence is based on the generalised method of moments. The findings broadly show that ICT can be employed to dampen the potentially negative effect of globalisation on environmental degradation like CO2 emissions. Practical, policy and theoretical implications are discussed.
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Notes
According to the EKC hypothesis, in the long term, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between per capita income and environmental degradation. It is important to note that, the paragraph highlighting the extant literature involves some grouping of it on “CO2 emissions, energy consumption and economic growth” into two main strands. Literature on the EKC is categorised in one of the strands. This categorisation which is based on broader literature than the EKC scope is not exhaustive and does not negate the fact that there are two main branches of the literature on the EKC.
The 44 countries are: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo Democratic. Republic., Congo Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia.
Hence, the procedure for treating ivstyle (years) is ‘iv (years, eq(diff))’ whereas the gmmstyle is employed for predetermined variables.
“First, the null hypothesis of the second-order Arellano and Bond autocorrelation test (AR [2]) in difference for the absence of autocorrelation in the residuals should not be rejected. Second, the Sargan and Hansen overidentification restrictions (OIR) tests should not be significant because their null hypotheses are the positions that instruments are valid or not correlated with the error terms. In essence, while the Sargan OIR test is not robust but not weakened by instruments, the Hansen OIR is robust but weakened by instruments. In order to restrict identification or limit the proliferation of instruments, we have ensured that instruments are lower than the number of cross-sections in most specifications. Third, the difference in Hansen test (DHT) for exogeneity of instruments is also employed to assess the validity of results from the Hansen OIR test. Fourth, a Fischer test for the joint validity of estimated coefficients is also provided” (Asongu and De Moor 2017, p.200).
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Asongu, S.A. ICT, openness and CO2 emissions in Africa. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 9351–9359 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-1239-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-1239-4