Role of country risks and renewable energy consumption on environmental quality: Evidence from MINT countries

This study focuses on uncovering the effect of country risks and renewable energy consumption on environ-mental quality. In this context, the study examines Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey (MINT) nations; takes economic growth, trade openness, and urbanization into account; includes data from 1990 to 2018; applies cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) as the main model while common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) and augmented mean group (AMG) for robustness checks. The empirical results show that (i) economic growth, political risk, urbanization, and trade openness contribute to an increase in ecological foot-print; (ii) economic and financial risks as well as renewable energy use have a positive influence on environ-mental quality; (iii) a unidirectional causality exists from economic risk, financial risk, political risk, economic growth, urbanization, and trade openness to the ecological footprint: (iv) the validity of the EKC hypothesis for the MINT economies is verified; (v) the robustness of CS-ARDL results are validated by CCEMG and AMG ap-proaches. Based on these results, policymakers should promote a sustainable environment to lessen the ecological footprint. Additionally, governments should firmly support investments in green technology as well as economic and financial stability to boost energy efficiency and promote the adoption and usage of energy-saving products.

Automated summary

This study examines the impact of country risks and renewable energy consumption on environmental quality. The study focuses on Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey (MINT) nations and considers economic growth, trade openness, and urbanization. The results show that economic growth, political risk, urbanization, and trade openness contribute to an increase in ecological footprint, while economic and financial risks and renewable energy use have a positive influence on environmental quality. The findings also verify the validity of the EKC hypothesis for the MINT economies and the robustness of the results.