The role of income, trade, and environmental regulations in ensuring environmental sustainability in MINT countries: Evidence from ecological footprint.

Abstract

Income alone cannot ensure environmental sustainability. As such, different economies have relied on environmental regulations to preserve the quality of their environment. The efficiency of such regulations on environmental degradation is still unclear in developing countries culpable for lax environmental regulations. As such, this study applies the Prais-Winsten regression, along with the Driscoll-Kraay panel-corrected standard errors approach to explores the effects of environmental regulations on the ecological footprint (EFP) in MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey) countries from 1980-2016. The results suggest that energy consumption, trade and GDP increase the EFP while environmental regulations reduce it thereby mitigating environmental degradation, though insignificantly. This indicates that environmental regulations are not totally successful in mitigating ecological distortions in MINT countries. The study applies the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) estimator to obtain the country-wise results. There is evidence that energy consumption increases the EFP in all the countries. The same influence is exacted by trade on the EFP, except in Turkey. The abating role of environmental regulations on environmental degradation were confirmed in all the countries. It was significant in Nigeria and Turkey, but not in Mexico and Indonesia. Further findings revealed a bidirectional causality between GDP and EFP. A one-way causality flows from trade to energy consumption, and from energy consumption and EFP to environmental regulations. Policy directions are discussed within the framework of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).