New insights on the contribution of human capital to environmental degradation: Evidence from heterogeneous and cross-correlated countries

George Hondroyiannis, Evangelia Papapetrou and Pinelopi Tsalaporta

Energy Economics, 2022, vol. 116, issue C

Abstract: Averting environmental degradation and reducing dependence on conventional energy products has come to the center stage of policy debate and academic research. Employing data from 19 OECD countries with advanced expenditures in education we examine the effect of human capital on environmental degradation over the period 1980 to 2019. We employ two alternative measures to capture environmental degradation that is energy consumption and CO2 emissions, and account for human capital by focusing on government expenditure on education to offer a better insight into the role of policy making in averting environmental degradation. The results suggest that human capital enhancement is robustly associated with reductions in energy consumption and CO2 emissions. We additionally provide a comprehensive analysis of the human capital- environmental degradation nexus along the conditional distribution by employing the Machado and Santos Silva (2019) estimation method of quantile regressions with fixed effects. It is shown that human capital is affecting energy consumption and CO2 emissions negatively and statistically significantly across the distribution.

Keywords: Human capital; CO2 emissions; Energy consumption; OECD; Panel quantile regression estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 F64 J24 O50 Q43 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:116:y:2022:i:c:s014098832200545x

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2022.106416

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