Investigation the impact of Information & Communication Technology, Foreign Direct Investment and Renewable Energy on Ecological Footprint? Evidence from South Asian Countries

Abstract

Today, environmental deterioration has become a serious problem throughout South Asia. The macroeconomic factors that influence the environmental quality across various regions must therefore be modelled. Under such circumstances, this study explores that how ecological footprint effected by information & communication technology, foreign direct investment, renewable energy for South Asian countries by utilizing panel data from 1990 to 2018. We use Granger Causality method and autoregressive distributed lag ARDL to check the cointegration, the long and short-term association and cointegration. The aggregate empirical results show a long-term, strong negative association among information & communication technologies, foreign direct investment and ecological footprint. On the other side, renewable energy positively and sustainably correlated with ecological footprint which reduce environmental degradation. Both Environmental Kuznets curves (EKC) and pollution haven hypothesis support our findings. Additionally, the findings show that developing information & communication technologies, making the switch to renewable energy sources and restricting foreign direct investment inflows are crucial for halting environmental degradation in the concerned South Asian nations. Numerous policies related to improve environmental welfare are advised in light of these findings.