Can Renewable Energy and Export Help in Reducing Ecological Footprint of India? Empirical Evidence from Augmented ARDL Co-Integration and Dynamic ARDL Simulations

Soumen Rej (), Barnali Nag and Md. Emran Hossain
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Soumen Rej: Vinod Gupta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, India
Barnali Nag: Vinod Gupta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, India

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 23, 1-21

Abstract: The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of exports, renewable energy, and industrialization on the ecological footprint (EF) of India over the period spanning from 1970–2017 by employing the newly developed augmented ARDL (A-ARDL) co-integration approach and the novel dynamic ARDL (D-ARDL) technique. The empirical results demonstrate that exports and renewable energy consumption reduce the EF, while industrialization intensifies the EF. More precisely, a 1% increase in export (renewable energy consumption) reduces the EF by 0.05% (0.09%). In addition, the short-run elasticity of the GDP is found to be larger than the long-run elasticity indicating the possibility of the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) of the EF for India. The study indicates that the income effect and increased policy focus on renewable energy usage can be expected to reduce India’s per capita EF in the long run. Moreover, India’s export sector has been traditionally less energy intensive, which reflects in our findings of export growth leading to a reduction in EF. Based on the empirical findings, this study recommends some policy insights that may assist India to effectively reduce its ecological footprint.

Keywords: ecological footprint; renewable energy; augmented ARDL; dynamic ARDL; frequency domain causality; export; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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