Examining the Relationship Between Corruption, Economic Growth, Environmental Degradation, and Energy Consumption: a Panel Analysis in MENA Region

The aim of this study is to investigate whether energy consumption, corruption, environmental quality, and political instability affect economic growth in 13 Middle East and North African (MENA) countries over the period 1984-2012 using both the static (POLS, FE, and RE) and dynamic (Diff-GMM and Sys-GMM) panel data approaches. The empirical results show that the increased corruption directly affects economic growth, environmental quality, and energy consumption. However, corruption has an indirect effect on economic growth through energy consumption and environmental quality, an indirect effect on environmental quality through economic growth and an indirect effect on energy consumption through CO2 emissions and GDP. Indeed, energy consumption and CO2 emissions affected the economic growth. Meanwhile, economic growth effected CO2 emissions and energy consumption, and finally, CO2 emissions affected economic growth. Our paper addresses these important issues using the general method of moments (GMM) in panel data. We also find that economic growth in MENA countries reacts negatively to the environmental degradation and political instability. These empirical insights are of particular interest to policymakers as they help to build sound economic policies to sustain economic development.