ZEF Colloquium on The impact of socio-economic development and political instability on the ecological footprint in the MENA region: Evidence from panel VAR estimations (in collaboration with Zouhair Mrabet and Karim Mimouni)

April 15, 2021 | 15:30 h - 16:30 h

Speaker: Mouyad Alsamara, Department of Finance and Economics, College of Business and Economics, Qatar University

Title: The impact of socio-economic development and political instability on the ecological footprint in the MENA region: Evidence from panel VAR estimations (in collaboration with Zouhair Mrabet and Karim Mimouni)

Abstract:

Using a sample of 16 countries from the MENA region for the period 1990 to 2016 and the Panel Vector Autoregressive (PVAR) methodology, we find a strong negative relationship between the ecological footprint and the human development index (HDI). Interestingly, our findings reveal that this relationship is inverted U-shaped where non-oil countries in the MENA region did not reach the turning level yet whereas oil-producing countries are now at a stage of development where further increases in HDI will reduce the ecological footprint. Moreover, we show that the political instability following the 2011 Arab uprising has shifted the turning point upward. Accordingly, because of the uprising, MENA region countries require a higher level of HDI to start experiencing environmental improvements. These findings are of paramount importance with several policy implications in exploring potential pathways to sustainable development.

Keywords: Ecological Foot print, Economic development, Energy use, Urbanization, Trade openness, political instability

JEL classification: F18, O47, C23, Q53

You can watch the recorded lecture on ZEF's youtube channel here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ase9xle3CHk&t=70s