Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Ph.D. in Public Sector Economics, Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences, Lorestan University, Khoram Abad, Iran.
Abstract
Empirical literature about the effect of natural resources on environmental quality indicators shows different results. This issue can be due to the difference in the impact of the types of natural resources or the type of environmental index used in the model. In this regard, the main purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of the rent of various natural resources on the environmental load capacity factor (LCF) in selected countries of the MENA region during the years 2000-2022. As a new and comprehensive indicator of environmental sustainability, LCF considers both the supply and demand sides of the ecosystem and its larger values indicate higher environmental sustainability. For this purpose, by using a STIRPAT model in the field of factors affecting the environment quality and its empirical test through co-integration analysis with cross-sectional dependence and the quantile panel regression method, the relationship between the rent of natural resources and its types with environmental sustainability indicator has been investigated in the framework of the load capacity curve hypothesis (LCC). Rresults of the estimation model in the framework of LCC indicate that, at the total level, the natural resource rent at all levels of environmental sustainability (except the middle levels) had a small and significant positive impact on LCF, and the average change in the dependent variable is more in countries with higher levels of environmental sustainability. At the disaggregated level, in the high levels of environmental sustainability, natural gas rent and forest rent have a positive and significant impact, and mining rent has a negative and significant impact on LCF. Meanwhile, oil rent has not a significant impact on LCF at all levels of environmental sustainability (except the medium level). Also, the LCC hypothesis is not rejected as a U-shaped relationship between economic growth and LCF in countries with medium and low levels of environmental sustainability. Based on other results, population density at all levels of environmental sustainability and renewable energy consumption at high levels of environmental sustainability had a negative (and significant) and positive (and significant) impact on LCF, respectively.
Keywords
- Natural Resources Rent
- Environmental Sustainability
- Load Capacity Factor
- Load Capacity Curve
- Quantile Panel Regression
Main Subjects
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