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Environmental treaties’ impact on the environment in resource-rich and non-resource-rich countries

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Abstract

This paper examines the impact of environmental treaties on the environment across 74 countries: 50 resource-rich and 24 non-resource-rich countries. Using data spanning over 35 years, we find a negative and significant association between environmental treaties and environmental quality in resource-rich countries. On the contrary, we find environmental treaties positively and significantly affect the environment in non-resource-rich countries. Our results suggest that the environmental treaties signed by resource-rich countries may lead them to achieve sustainable development growth by 2030. Therefore, our results extend the environment literature and inform policymakers of the need to pay attention to the effects of signing environmental treaties on environmental protection.

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Availability of data and materials

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

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

    Abdulrasheed Zakari

  2. Alma mater Europaea ECM, Maribor, Slovenia

    Abdulrasheed Zakari

  3. Department of Accounting, Finance, and Economics, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, UK

    Festus Fatai Adedoyin & Azadeh Pazouki

  4. Social Science Research Institute, Tokai University, Tokyo, Japan

    Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary

Authors
  1. Abdulrasheed Zakari
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  2. Festus Fatai Adedoyin
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  3. Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary
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  4. Azadeh Pazouki
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Abdulrasheed Zakari; data curation: Festus Fatai Adedoyin; formal analysis: Azadeh Pazouki; methodology: Festus Fatai Adedoyin; validation: Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary; writing—original draft: Abdulrasheed Zakari and Festus Fatai Adedoyin; writing—review and editing: Azadeh Pazouki and Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary.

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Responsible editor: Roula Inglesi-Lotz

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 7 List of countries included in the sample
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Table 8 Schematic literature review map for selected empirical studies
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Zakari, A., Adedoyin, F.F., Taghizadeh-Hesary, F. et al. Environmental treaties’ impact on the environment in resource-rich and non-resource-rich countries. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 33108–33119 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12715-1

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