Drivers of Green Growth: Roles of Innovation and Fragility

Emad Kazemzadeh, Narges Salehnia, Yang Yu and Magdalena Radulescu ()
Additional contact information
Narges Salehnia: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad 1357, Iran
Yang Yu: International Business School, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Magdalena Radulescu: Department of Finance, Accounting and Economics, National University of Science and Technology Politehica Bucharest, Pitesti University Center, 110040 Pitesti, Romania

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 2, 1-32

Abstract: In recent years, policymakers have increasingly focused on environmental quality and economic growth. While various factors influence green growth, two important factors that have been overlooked in research are the global innovation index and the fragile states index. This study employs novel methods, such as necessary condition analysis (NCA) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), to analyze green growth across 90 countries in 2019, surpassing traditional regression techniques. The NCA model identifies essential variables for green growth, revealing that global innovation, institutional quality, human development, and globalization are crucial conditions. Conversely, the fsQCA model offers intricate solutions by combining key variables for green growth. It presents five solutions for achieving high green growth, each tailored to specific groups of countries. For instance, Solution 1, with a consistency of 0.96%, suggests that increased consumption of renewable energy, greater trade openness, and reduced fragility in states lead to higher green growth in countries like Denmark and Austria. Thus, policymakers can foster both economic growth and environmental improvement by promoting renewable energy adoption, enhancing global trade management, and strengthening institutional quality and political stability.

Keywords: green growth; fsQCA model; global innovation index; NCA model; fragile states (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/2/735/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/2/735/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:735-:d:1569821

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().