This study empirically investigates the effects of trade, foreign direct investment, and growth on environmental quality and sustainability. In order to attain the objective of the study, we adopt the novel dynamic common correlation effect technique that accounts for cross-sectional dependence. A panel of 109 countries from 1995 to 2016 was used for the study, based on availability of data. The results indicated that economic growth, trade openness, and FDI generally degrade the environment quality, while control variables like population and human development are environmentally friendly. Income-level disparity is equally noticed with the division of the panel into low-income, lower middle-income, and upper middle-income and highincome countries. For sustainability, only human development is seen to be exerting a positive effect on ecological overshoot. The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is equally validated for the global sample and for each income level but more significant in lower middle-income countries. The results indicate that efforts to improve the quality of the environment and sustain Mother Nature need to be encouraged. There is need to introduce abatement policies for firms, encourage renewable energy consumption, discourage investment in fossil fuel, implement the Common Agricultural policy, and adopt trade policy with legislation on minimum pollution within all countries.

Purpose The continuous increase in the negative gap between biocapacity and ecological footprint has remained globally persistent since early 1970. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of foreign capital, domestic capital formation, institutional quality and democracy on ecological footprint within a global panel of 101 countries from 1995 to 2017. Design/methodology/approach The empirical procedure is based on data mix. To this end, this study uses a battery of testing and estimation approaches both conventional (no cross-sectional dependence [CD]) and novel approaches (accounting for CD). Among the battery of estimation techniques used, there are the dynamic ordinary least square, the mean group, the common correlation effect mean group technique, the augmented mean group technique, the Pooled mean group and the dynamic common correlation effect technique with the desire to obtain outcomes robust to heteroskedasticity, endogeneity, cross-correlation and CD among others. Findings The estimated outcomes indicate that using different estimators’ domestic capital formation consistently degrades the environment through an increase in ecological footprint, while institutional quality consistently enhances the quality of the environment. Further, the outcome reveals that, though foreign capital inflow degrades the environment, the time period is essential, as it shows a short-run environmental improvement and a long-run environmental degradation. Democratic activities show a mixed outcome with short-run degrading effect and a long-run enhancement effect on environmental quality. Practical implications Green investment should be the policy target of all economies, and these policies should be adopted to target both domestic capital and foreign capital alike. Second, the adoption of democratic practices will produce good leaders that will not just design short-term policies to blindfold the populace temporary but those that will produce long-term-oriented practices that will better and enhance the quality of the environment through the reduction of the global footprint. Equally, enhancing the institutional framework like respect for the rule of law in matters of abatement should be encouraged. Originality/value Although much research on the role of macroeconomic indicators on environmental quality has been done this far, democratic practices, intuitional quality and domestic capital have been given little attention. This research fills this gap by considering robust empirical techniques.

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This study analyzes the effect of financial development on education in a sample of 37 sub-Saharan African countries with data covering the period from 2000 to 2018. We use the nine measures of financial development proposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the three levels of education, including primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Applying the two-stage system Generalized Method of Moment (GMM), we find that financial development increases school enrollment in each level in sub-Saharan Africa. The gender results also show that financial development improves primary and secondary education for both male and female, except at the tertiary level where the effect does not appear to be robust for male. Based on these results, we suggest that the financial market and financial institution in SSA should be improved given its beneficial effects on the education system.

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