The present paper re-examines the asymmetric impact of financial development on environmental quality in Pakistan for the period 1985Q1 to 2014Q4. A comprehensive index of financial development is generated using Bank-and Stock market-based financial development indicators. The results show that inefficient use of energy adversely affects the environmental quality. This suggests adoption of energy efficient technology at both production and consumption levels. These technologies would be helpful to improve environmental quality, enhance the productivity in long-run and save energy. Bank-based financial development also impedes the environment. The government should encourage lenders to ease the funding for energy sector and allocate financial resources for environment friendly businesses rather than wasting them in consumer financing.

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This paper examines the asymmetric impact of globalisation and economic growth on energy consumption in BRICS countries, applying the NARDL bounds approach to explore the presence of asymmetric cointegration across variables. The empirical results reveals that energy consumption is positively and negatively affected by the positive and negative globalisation shocks, respectively. A positive shock in economic growth promotes energy consumption, while a negative shock reduces energy consumption.

The impact of the policy reform on economic performance has been one of the stifling issues in development economics in the recent years. Since the middle 1970s, there has been considerable progress in the trade reform in the most developing countries, turning from an import substitution strategy to export-oriented approach. Pakistan also follows export-oriented policies. Pakistan’s trade pattern and trade policy have been moving towards fewer and fewer controls, tariffs rates have come tumbling down. Export-led-growth hypothesis (ELG) suggests that due to positive correlation between export and growth, therefore, export-oriented policies contribute to economic growth. Thus, international trade and development theory suggests that export growth contributes positively to economic growth. On the basis of this framework, most empirical work on the effects of export promoting strategy followed in developing countries evaluated openness with trade. Empirical research about the effect of this liberalisation process has treated export as principal channel for growth. The relationship with exports and growth, grounded in endogenous growth theory, has been tested for Pakistan [Khan (1995); Ahmad, Butt, and Alam (2000) and Akbar (2000)].

The issue of how developing countries can accelerate their economic growth is of crucial importance. The two primary alternative routes to development are inward-oriented growth strategies, which emphasises import-substitution industrialisation (ISI); and outward-oriented policies, which emphasises the economic benefits of participation in the world economy, that is, export-led growth (ELG). The late 1960s and 1970s witnessed a disillusionment with ISI in many developing countries, leading to a reduction in protectionist measures. The 1980s witnessed further intensification of liberalisation measures as many countries retreated from socialism, regulation and planning. The dis-advantages of ISI, the potential strength of ELG policies and the conditions necessary for successful transition from an inwardoriented regimes to an outward oriented have been extensively researched1 and beyond the scope of the present study. Moreover many of the rapidly growing newly industrialising countries (NICs) lend support to the idea that export promotion can be an effective development strategy. Naturally such a line of causation is consistent with macroeconomic theory, where exports are treated as injections into the economy [Kaldor (1967); Feder (1982); Romer (1989); Krueger (1990) and Marin (1992)]