ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY OF GCC COUNTRIES: LINKING BETWEEN COMPOSITE INDEX OF ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE, SOCIO-POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS.

This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the issue of environmental performance. The investigation of the topic of the Composite Index of Environmental performance (CIEP) in the paper is carried out in the following logical sequence. The research is focused on the relationship between the composite index of environmental performances and the sociopolitical and economic elements of countries. Systematization literary sources and approaches for solving the problem of the influence of the integration of a composite Index of Environmental performance on the socio-political and economic dimensions. The paper presents the results of the empirical analysis with an econometric model which uses a composite index of environmental performance. The relevance of the decision of this scientific problem is that advanced and the methodological tools of the research methods try to measure the influence of Composite Index of Environmental performance model as a dependent variable on economic (technology, transportation, infrastructure, consumption of goods, international trade and tourism) and sociopolitical factors (democracy, freedom, transparency, and social policy) of countries. We used a generalized least squares estimation with a panel data from 6 countries observed during the period 2002-2016. Our results reveal that democracy, social policy, and transparency have a positive effect on environmental performance. Of the same, transport, infrastructure and tourism have a negative effect. The results of the research can be useful for countries, researchers and practitioners that try to improve the environmental performance with a good level of the social politico and economic dimensions. Finally, our results show that good environmental performance is related to the different characteristics of countries such as social, political and economics. And these results can be useful for countries to incorporate this valuable composite index in their objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]