Does green growth in E-7 countries depend on economic policy uncertainty, institutional quality, and renewable energy? Evidence from quantile-based regression

Environmental degradation is one of the most debatable topics at international forums and it is consid-ered a prime concern for the entire world. Therefore, researchers and policymakers have turned their attention from conventional economic growth to green growth. Although the existing literature has dis-cussed several determinants of green growth, the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU), renew-able energy consumption (RENE), and institutional quality (IQ) on green growth (GGDP) is relatively unexplored. Hence, this study is the earliest attempt to investigate the impact of EPU, IQ, and RENE on GGDP for emerging seven (E-7) countries from 1996 to 2019. In doing so, we apply panel quantile regres-sion (PQR). The empirical findings delineate that EPU has a negative impact on GGDP, whereas IQ and RENE enhance the GGDP in E-7 countries. Based on the outcomes, this study suggests policy implications for achieving targets of the SDG 07, SDG 08, SDG 13, and SDG 16. The governments of these countries can achieve higher GGDP by ensuring political stability and reliable macroeconomic policies and through making such flexible policies that can easily control or address unpredictable future economic issues.& COPY; 2023 China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and Peking University. Published by Elsevier B.V This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

Environmental degradation is a highly debated topic globally and is considered a major concern for the world. Researchers and policymakers have focused on green growth as an alternative to conventional economic growth. This study examines the impact of economic policy uncertainty, renewable energy consumption, and institutional quality on green growth for emerging seven countries from 1996 to 2019 using panel quantile regression. The findings indicate that economic policy uncertainty has a negative effect on green growth, while institutional quality and renewable energy consumption have positive effects.