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Transitioning towards a sustainable environment: the dynamic nexus between economic complexity index, technological development and human capital with environmental quality in India

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Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the dynamic nexus between economic complexity index (ECI), technological development (TIN), human capital (HC) and environmental quality in India for transition towards a sustainable environment. This study is based on secondary data covering the period from 1985 to 2018. For empirical analysis, this study applied “Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology” (STIRPAT) model framework under the estimation of autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and vector error correction model (VECM) model. The empirical findings of model 1 show ECI, TIN, HC and urbanization (URB) as the helping hands to mitigate the problem of environmental degradation by shrinking the level of EF, whereas for model 2, ECI and TIN failed to influence the CO2 emissions, but HC served as a stimulant for environmental quality enhancement by declining the level of CO2 emissions. In contrast, GDP growth and URB strengthen the CO2 emissions levels. Moreover, in VECM framework, estimated findings reveal that the covariables Granger-cause EF and CO2 emissions, inferring that causality flows asynchronously from its covariables to EF and CO2. Impulse response function (IRF) revealed that the responses in EF and CO2 emissions ascribed to changes in its covariables. The outcome of the study has some implications for environmental policy strategists to prepare sustainable environment policies and other responsible authorities for sustainable development goal (SDGs), academician and scholars. All the stakeholders involved in environmental economics and policymakers can evaluate this study to design proper policy framework with respect to the environment. There are few studies that explore the dynamic nexus between ECI, TIN and HC with environmental quality in the control environment of URB and GDP growth using the STIRPAT model for India.

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Data availability

The dataset is available with the corresponding author and can be provided on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Commerce and Economics, Presidency University, Bengaluru, India

    Vishal Sharma

  2. GLA University, Mathura, India

    Aruna Dhamija

  3. China Institute of Development Strategy and Planning, and Center for Industrial Economics, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Mohammad Haseeb

  4. Department of Human Resource, Chandigarh University, Mohali, Punjab, 140413, India

    Umang Sharma

  5. School of Social Sciences and Humanities, VIT-AP University, Amaravati, India

    Sunil Khosla

  6. Department of Management Studies, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Durgapur, India

    Srijana Tamang

Authors
  1. Vishal Sharma
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  2. Aruna Dhamija
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  3. Mohammad Haseeb
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  4. Sunil Khosla
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  5. Srijana Tamang
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  6. Umang Sharma
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Contributions

Vishal Sharma: conceptualization, formal analysis, result reporting and validation; Aruna Dhamija: literature review, methodology and validation; Mohammad Haseeb: investigation and writing discussion; Sunil Khosla: literature and discussion; Srijana Tamang: review and editing; Umang Sharma: review, editing and validation.

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Correspondence to Vishal Sharma.

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Sharma, V., Dhamija, A., Haseeb, M. et al. Transitioning towards a sustainable environment: the dynamic nexus between economic complexity index, technological development and human capital with environmental quality in India. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 87049–87070 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28310-5

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