Economic, social, and political determinants of environmental sustainability: Panel data evidence from NEXT eleven economies

This paper aims to investigate the impact of social, economic, and political variables on per capita ecological footprint consumption in the NEXT Eleven economies over the period 1984- 2018. The study utilized the dynamic heterogeneous panel estimators of Cross-Sectionally Augmented Auto-regressive Distributive Lag (CS-ARDL) along with the estimator with a multifactor error structure. The study also estimated the cross-Sectionally augmented distributed lag (CS-DL) model while for robustness check the augmented mean group (AMG) and cross-Sectionally augmented error correction method (CS-ECM) is also considered. The study finding maintains that the impact of GDP per capita, multifaceted phenomena of financial development, and military expenditure is positive and significant suggesting that a unit increase in these variables deteriorates the environment in the NEXT Eleven economies. In contrast, higher life expectancy and government stability improve the environment in the long run. The findings of the study suggest that eco-friendly technologies to be used in the production process, as well as projects using outdated technologies, should be discouraged along with the assurance of government stability and reduction of military expenditure in the NEXT Eleven economies.