The Role of Energy and Environmental Quality in Exploring the Economic Sustainability: A New Appraisal in the Context of North African Countries

Sustainability

Yosr Guirat¹  Mohamed Kadria²  Sahbi Farhani³ 

[1] Department of Business Administration, Tunis Business School, University of Tunis, El Mourouj 2074, Tunisia;Department of Economics and Finance, College of Business and Economics, Qassim University, P.O. Box 6640, Buraidah 51452, Saudi Arabia;Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods, Higher Institute of Finance and Taxation of Sousse (ISFFS), University of Sousse, Sousse 4042, Tunisia;

关键词: energy consumption;    CO₂ emissions;    economic development;    North Africa;    panel data analysis;   

DOI  :  10.3390/su132413990

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The aim of this study is to investigate the long-term relationship between real gross domestic product (GDP), energy consumption (EC), and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions using: (i) fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) estimates, to deal with the bias of endogeneity regressors and the countries’ heterogeneity, and (ii) a pooled mean group (PMG) estimator, to involve both pooling and averaging for a dynamic specification based on the auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. Regarding five North African countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) over the period of 1971–2014, our empirical findings seem relevant in the light of economic developments, and indicate that increased energy consumption gives rise to both GDP growth and increased CO₂ emissions, as a result of more pollution. This leads us to conclude that North African countries should improve the productivity of their energy by increasing: (i) the implementation of energy-saving projects, energy conservation, energy efficiency, and energy infrastructure, while outsourcing to achieve GDP growth as well as increasing their investment in full-energy-potential projects, and (ii) the use of more renewable energy in order to mitigate emissions.

【 授权许可】

Unknown