Linking economic growth and ecological footprint through human capital and biocapacity

As an indicator of environmental degradation, the ecological footprint has seen immense attention in the literature. However, because of the complex feedback in the relationships among economic development, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human wellbeing, the footprint remains poorly understood and largely neglected in political decision-making. This study examines the relationship between economic growth and the ecological footprint as it relates to biocapacity and human capital. The autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) econometric approach with a structural break is applied to data from 1971 from 2014 to reveal that economic growth increases ecological footprint that contributes to environmental degradation. In addition, biocapacity also increases the ecological footprint and contributes to environmental degradation. A causality analysis suggests there is no causality regarding the relationship between economic growth and the ecological footprint.