Globalization, renewable energy consumption, and agricultural production impacts on ecological footprint in emerging countries: using quantile regression approach

Abstract

Nowadays, paying attention to globalization and the consumption of renewable energy on the ecological footprint is one of the most important issues in the world. In the age of globalization, all countries are trying to prevent the spread of ecological degradation by enacting laws and regulations at the national level and regulating international agreements. This study investigates the effect of explanatory variables of globalization, renewable energy consumption, and agricultural production on the ecological footprint in emerging countries using fixed-effect panel quantile regression of 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th in the period 2002 to 2016. The results showed that the consumption of renewable energy at all levels except the 25th quantile has a positive and significant effect on the ecological footprint; this effect is more in higher quantiles. Globalization in all quantiles has a negative and significant impact on the ecological footprint and has had the most excellent effect among other explanatory variables. Agricultural production variable at the 25th and 50th quantile levels had the most significant and positive effect on the ecological footprint. Therefore, it can be concluded that the increase in agricultural production, income, renewable energy consumption, population, and trade openness can lead to increased environmental degradation. However, the effects of globalization have had the most negligible negative impact on the ecological footprint.

Keywords: Agriculture; Environmental degradation; Quantile regression; Renewable energy; Responsible Editor: Nicholas Apergis.