Environmental sustainability risk, institutional effectiveness and urbanization

Abstract

This study examines the effect of urbanization, institutional quality and other variables on environmental sustainability risk among economies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Environmental sustainability risk is examined from three main perspectives – emission of gases inimical to the environment (CO2 emissions), exploitation of land and water resources (ecological footprint) and exploitation of resources devoid of the requisite savings and education expenditure (genuine sustainability risk). Empirical analyses were performed using the Limited Information Maximum Likelihood (LIML) Instrumental Variable estimation technique. Estimated results suggest that urbanization, population growth and increase commodity prices on the global market (for key export commodities) worsen CO2 emissions among economies in the sub-region. The results further suggest that urbanization, population growth, governance and institutional structures increase resource exploitation. Additional results suggest that institutional quality lessens adverse effect urbanization has on environmental sustainability risk (CO2 emissions) and genuine sustainability risk; but exacerbates the impact urbanization has on ecological footprint. Given these findings, this study recommends conscious efforts at improving governance and institutional structures among governments in the sub-region to lessen adverse effect of urbanization and population growth on environmental sustainability risk.

The Threshold level of Institutional Quality in the Nexus between Financial Development and Environmental Sustainability in Nigeria

“…The problem of multicollinearity exist when two or more predictor variables in a multiple regression model are highly correlated. Following the works of Abaidoo and Agyapong (2023), the threshold limit of 85% for the correlation coefficients was used. From the results it can be seen that there are no issues of multicollinearity in the results as none of the correlation coefficient is above the threshold limit of 0.85.…”

Assessment of Urban Agglomeration Ecological Sustainability and Identification of Influencing Factors: Based on the 3DEF Model and the Random Forest

“…With the acceleration of urbanization, human demand for natural capital increases, even if the utilization efficiency of natural capital flow is improved. Because the acceleration of urbanization makes consumption of the capital stock faster, urban ecological sustainability still faces a severe test [46]. Second, we could explore measures to balance the accumulation of natural capital and stock consumption to promote the ecological sustainability of urban agglomeration.…”