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The mounting level of environmental degradation in Malaysia constitutes a grave issue to analysts and policymakers because it has adverse impact on climate change and human lives. This study is motivated by the dearth of a comprehensive research on the environmental impact of sectoral growth. It focuses on sectoral growth because of the need to strike a balance between the economic and environmental impacts of the agricultural, industrial, and financial sectors in Malaysia. Therefore, this study analyses the environmental impacts of the agricultural, industrial, and financial sectors in Malaysia during 1980–2018. It uses ecological footprint and carbon emissions as indicators of environmental degradation to properly capture various aspects of environmental degradation. It employs the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) model and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) procedure. This study contributes to the extant literature by showing that the agricultural, industrial, and market-based financial sectors aggravate carbon emissions while the bank-based financial sector mitigates carbon emissions in Malaysia. However, the impacts of the agricultural, industrial, and financial sectors on ecological footprint are tenuous. Though the EKC hypothesis is verified, energy consumption worsens ecological footprint and carbon emissions. The findings are robust to structural breaks and satisfactory diagnostic tests. This study implies that the agricultural, industrial, and financial sectors are significant determinants of carbon emissions. Since Malaysia cannot afford to sacrifice sectoral development for environmental sustainability, it is necessary for stakeholders to embrace environmental-friendly techniques that can boost sectoral development without compromising environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decades, China has continued to pursue the quantitative expansion of economic development at the expense of the environmental quality resulting in high environmental degradation. Hence, this study evaluates the economic efficiency under the constraints of energy and environment, as well as unravels the determinants of economic efficiency in 30 provinces in China during 2005 to 2019. It deploys the improved super-efficiency Slack-Based Measure (SBM) model and Tobit regression model. The statistical results show that economic growth efficiency displays a declining trend in recent years in China. However, there is a regional heterogeneity of green economic efficiency across the provinces, with the efficiency values exhibiting a clear downward stepwise distribution from the eastern to western region. Moreover, the regression results indicate that energy consumption and GDP growth have significant adverse effects on green economic efficiency. This implies that China's economic growth is excessively reliant on energy consumption which exceeds the environmental carrying capacity, causing a decline in green economic efficiency. The study of China's economic efficiency is fundamental because it explores the potential space for sustainable growth as well as provides clarity on the current status and prospects of economic development with a view to avoiding economic stagnation and providing policy support for sustainable economic development. Therefore, policy makers should proactively take measures to improve energy efficiency and shift economic development targets from quantitative expansion to qualitative improvement that facilitates green economic efficiency. Based on the empirical results of the different regions, this study also provides some respective policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though the impact of foreign aid on economic growth has been examined in several studies, the roles of human and physical capital in aid-growth nexus has not been investigated. This is important because the effectiveness of foreign aid could be contingent upon the absorption capacity of the recipient country. We fill this research gap by examining the moderating roles of human and physical capital on aid-growth nexus in Nigeria during 1980 to 2020. Our study deploys the Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach on the interaction models. It shows that the variables are cointegrated. Though aid has a positive impact on growth, human and physical capital have significant moderating roles on the impact of aid on growth. Precisely, the marginal effect of aid on growth varies with the levels of human and physical capital. However, if human and physical capital surpass the threshold levels of 55% and 65%, respectively, an increase in aid cannot accelerate growth. These findings are robust to alternative proxies, structural breaks as well as diagnostic tests. This research implies that, given the requisite levels of human and physical capital, foreign aid can complement domestic capital to enhance growth. Hence, for nations to obtain the long-term benefits of aid, they should create the enabling environment by adequately investing in human and physical capital to attain sustainable economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although some studies have posited that sectoral growth could influence environmental pollution through energy consumption, the issue has not been explicitly and empirically investigated in the carbon-neutrality literature. Hence, this analysis fills the gap in the extant literature by employing the interaction models to ascertain the moderating role of energy consumption on the environmental impacts of the industrial, agricultural, financial, and service sectors in Malaysia. It also analyzes the marginal effects of sectoral growth on environmental pollution (i.e., ecological footprint and carbon emissions) at various levels of energy consumption. The Autoregressive Distributed lag technique utilized in this study found that the variables are cointegrated. The empirical estimations reveal that energy consumption plays a harmful moderating role on the impacts of the industrial and financial sectors on environmental pollution but does not aggravate the environmental impacts of the agricultural and service sectors. Besides, the marginal effects of the industrial and financial sectors on environmental pollution increase as the level of energy consumption rises in Malaysia. Based on the findings, this study highlights the policy implications and options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism and globalization are considered as drivers of economic growth since they boost income, job opportunities, infrastructural development, international trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, and technological diffusion. However, the economic benefits of tourism and globalization could occur at the expense of increased energy consumption (from fossil fuels) and other pollution-intensive activities that worsen environmental degradation, especially in countries with lax institutions and environmental standards. The roles of tourism, globalization, and their interaction term on environmental degradation have not been thoroughly investigated. Hence, this study analyzes the moderating role of globalization on the impact of tourism on environmental degradation (carbon emissions and ecological footprint) in 31 African countries using different dimensions of tourism and globalization. It uncovers the marginal effect of tourism on environmental degradation at different levels of globalization. It utilizes strategies that account for cointegration, dynamism, endogeneity, heterogeneity, cross sectional dependency, and causality. Evidence from this study shows that globalization and its dimensions play favorable moderating roles on the impact of tourism on carbon emissions. The marginal effect of tourism on carbon emissions decreases as globalization increases, suggesting that a simultaneous increase in tourism and globalization can mitigate carbon emissions. However, no evidence to show that globalization can mitigate the environmental impact of tourism on ecological footprint. The findings differ probably because carbon emissions and ecological footprint measure different aspects of environmental degradation. This analysis emphasizes the need for countries to consider the interaction between tourism and globalization in their quest to ensure environmental sustainability. JEL Classification: F64, Q53, Z32 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]