Nexus of Renewable Energy Consumption, Economic Growth, Population Growth, FDI, and Environmental Degradation in South Asian Countries: New Evidence from Driscoll-Kraay Standard Error Approach

Abstract

Environmental degradation is the most prominent area nowadays, especially in developing counties where high renewable energy consumption and population growth deteriorate the atmosphere of the country. Thus, the current study investigates the nexus among renewable energy consumption, economic growth (EG), population growth, foreign direct investment (FDI), and environmental degradation in South Asian countries. The covariance matrix estimators that are developed by “Driscoll and Kraay” are used in this study. The primary property of this estimator is that it does not account for the cross-sectional dependence; thus, it provides substantial, robust outcomes among the cross-sectional units while in the presence of cross-sectional dependence. The data was collected from the World Development Indicators (WDI) from 2001 to 2019. The findings exposed that positive nexus among the population growth, FDI, and environmental degradation while renewable energy consumption and EG has negative nexus with environmental degradation and also not supported the EKC hypothesis in South Asian countries. These findings suggested that the regulators should develop policies that reduce environmental degradation in the presence of high EG, energy consumption, FDI, and population growth.