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Why do firms' sustainability disclosure performance differ so much between firms and across countries? Which factors drive firm's awareness of sustainable development and do these factors have different driving mechanisms between developed and emerging countries? We answer these questions using a panel data regression model on around 1500 companies from 20 developed countries and 20 emerging countries during the period from 2009 to 2019. Our empirical results reveal that both firm-level and country-level variables are important predictors for sustainable disclosure performance. In developed countries, most firm-level indicators show a significant and positive effect on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosure scores. In emerging countries, only operating performance, measured by total revenues, and firm size have a positive impact on ESG disclosure, while high level of profitability is associated with low ESG score. On the country level, we find a significant relationship between all drivers and ESG scores in developed countries. However, in emerging markets, only economic, cultural (excepting uncertainty avoidance index) and technological factors are shown to impact significantly sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the role of the import diversification in the renewable energy consumption for a global panel of both developing and developed economies. The study applies panel co-integration and panel quantile regression analysis on the panel data of 138 countries during 1995–2018. For empirical analysis, the authors used Pedroni) cointegration test and panel-quantile regressions. The investigation proves that the import diversification significantly reduces the renewable energy consumption and there is a major need for designing and implementing some revised and synchronized policies of trade with the energy mix and sustainable development goals. The empirical findings claim that the foreign direct investments, natural resources and GDP increase significantly boost the renewable energy demand for both groups of developing and developed countries. Therefore, this study shows that generally the current trade policies might be ineffective and import diversification policies should be reformed to match with the energy regulations, manufacturing, and sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attaining sustainable development and cleaner production is a major challenge both for developed and developing economies; income, institutional regulations, institutional quality and international trade are the key determinants of environmental externalities. The current work attempts to study the role of environmental taxes and regulations on renewable energy generation for developed economies. For that, the authors have used the annual dataset for the period 1994 to 2018. More specifically, the study investigates the impacts of environmental taxes, environment-related technologies and the environmental policy stringency index on renewable electricity generation in 29 developed countries. Given the short available data of these countries, the authors have developed panel cointegration and panel regressions models (fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS), quantile regressions). The heterogeneous panel empirics stated that environmental regulations and income level support renewable electricity generation. The conclusions further mention that bureaucratic qualities such as decision making and trade openness tend to reduce renewable energy generation. The empirical findings allowed us to draw new narrative and implications. Overall, the conclusions argue that innovative regulations and policies can be useful for attaining specific sustainable development goals (e.g., SDG-7: cleaner and cheap energy). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]