Can environmental sustainability be decoupled from economic growth? Empirical evidence from Eastern Europe using the common correlated effect mean group test

doi:10.1016/j.regsus.2023.03.003

Abstract

Abstract:

The European Union (EU) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) aim to develop long-term policies for their respective member countries. Having observed increasing dangers to the environment posed by rising economic growth, they are seeking pathways to enable policy action on economic growth and environmental sustainability. Given the facts in theoretical and empirical studies, this study assessed the validity of the decoupling hypothesis by investigating asymmetricity in the relationship between environmental sustainability and economic growth in nine Eastern European countries from 1998 to 2017 using the cross-section augmented Dickey-Fuller (CADF) unit root, panel corrected standard error (PCSE), common correlated effect mean group (CCEMG), and Dumitrescu Hurlin causality approaches. Both population growth and drinking water are used as controlled variables. The outcomes establish strong cointegration among all the variables of interest. According to the results of CCEMG test, economic growth exerts short-term environmental degradation but has long-term environmental benefits in Eastern Europe; and population growth and drinking water exert a positive effect on environmental sustainability in both the short- and long-run. The results of Dumitrescu Hurlin causality test indicate that environmental sustainability is unidirectionally affected by economic growth. Based on these outcomes, we suggest the following policies: (1) the EU and OECD should implement member-targeted policies on economic growth and fossil-fuel use towards regulating industrial pollution, water use, and population control; and (2) the EU and OECD member countries should invest in environmental technologies through green research and development (R&D) to transform their dirty industrial processes and ensure productive energy use.

Key words: Economic growth, Environment sustainability, Decoupling, Carbon emissions, Eastern Europe, Common correlated effect mean group (CCEMG) test, Econometrics, Population growth

Kwaku ADDAI, Berna SERENER, Dervis KIRIKKALELI. Can environmental sustainability be decoupled from economic growth? Empirical evidence from Eastern Europe using the common correlated effect mean group test[J]. Regional Sustainability, 2023, 4(1): 68-80.

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Variable	Source	Data period	Reference
Ecological footprint (ECO)	Global Footprint Network (https://www.footprintnetwork.org/)	1998-2017	Saeed et al. (2022)
GDP per capita (GDP)	World Bank (https://databank.worldbank.org/)	1998-2017	B?a?ejowski et al. (2019); Jones (2022)
Annual population growth (POP)	World Bank (https://databank.worldbank.org/)	1998-2017	Leeson (2018); Wang et al. (2022)
Drinking water (DRWR)	Environmental Performance Index (https://epi.yale.edu/)	1998-2017	Havelaar and Melse (2003); Yang et al. (2022)

Parameter		LDRWR	LPOP	LECO
Mean	8.918	4.126	16.793	1.433
Median	9.159	3.924	16.819	5.882
Maximum	10.005	6.238	18.801	8.512
Minimum	7.262	3.555	15.219	5.770
Standard deviation	0.764	0.584	1.060	2.243
Skewness coefficient	0.568	1.817	0.243	2.233
Kurtosis coefficient	2.013	5.971	2.032	6.476
Jarque-Bera test	57.771	561.913	29.951	8.156
P-value	0.000^*	0.000^*	0.000^*	0.000^*
Sum	5457.592	2525.025	10,277.010	8.752
Sum of square for deviation	356.844	208.488	687.097	3.074
Observation	612	612	612	612

Test	Statistic	df	P-value
Breusch-Pagan Chi-square	1392.607	36	0.000^*
Friedman Chi-square	168.541	67	0.000^*

Variable	Pettitt’s test	Standard normal homogeneity test (SNHT)	Buishand’s test	von Neumann test
LECO	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*
LGDP	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*
LPOP	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*
LDRWR	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*	<0.0001^*

Variable	t-statistics
Variable	CADF	CIPS
LECO	I(1)	I(1)
LGDP	I(1)	I(1)
LPOP	I(1)	I(1)
LDRWR	I(1)	I(1)