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Income inequality, ecological footprint, and carbon dioxide emissions in Asian developing economies: what effects what and how?

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Abstract

The reduction of income inequality and environmental vulnerability is the most important factor, through which we can achieve the target of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The past papers have investigated the nexus between income inequality and carbon emissions; however, the relationship between income inequality and carbon emissions along with ecological footprint has not been studied in the case of developing countries. To this end, this study analyzed the impact of income inequality on both carbon emissions and ecological footprint as well as the impact of carbon emission and ecological footprint on income inequality by using the dataset from 2006 to 2017 for the 18 Asian developing economies. This study confirmed the positive relationship between carbon emissions, ecological footprint, and income inequality under the methodology of Driscoll and Kraay (D&K) standard error approach. Specifically, a higher-income gap is destructive for environmental degradation, whereas increasing level of carbon emissions and ecological footprint also leads to rising income inequality in the investigated region. Furthermore, foreign direct investment (FDI), easy access to electricity, and population growth control income inequality, but they have a detrimental effect on both ecological footprint and carbon emissions. The empirical findings also provide some important policy implications.

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Availability of data

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at the following URLs:

https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/dataset/world-development-indicators

https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/ecological-footprint/

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Funding

The research was funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 18BJY164), Education Department of Henan Province (Grant No. 19A790025), National natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41601566), and Humanities and Social Science Project of Education Ministry (14YJCZH128).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business School, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China

    Salim Khan

  2. School of Tourism and Management, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China

    Salim Khan & Wang Yahong

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  1. Salim Khan
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  2. Wang Yahong
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Mr. Salim Khan: performed conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing (original draft), and software coding. Dr. Wang Yahong: performed validation, software coding, and resource review and editing, discussed the results, and supervised manuscript status.

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Correspondence to Wang Yahong.

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Table 5

Table 5 List of investigated countries
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Khan, S., Yahong, W. Income inequality, ecological footprint, and carbon dioxide emissions in Asian developing economies: what effects what and how?. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 24660–24671 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17582-4

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