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The macroeconomic effect of the obesity epidemic on environmental degradation was examined for panel data from thirty-one European countries from 1991 to 2016. The quantile via moments model (QVM) was used to realize our empirical investigation. The empirical results indicate that the obesity epidemic, electricity consumption, and urbanisation encourage environmental degradation by increasing CO2 emissions, while economic growth decreases them. Moreover, we identify that the obesity epidemic raises the environmental degradation problem in three ways. First, the obesity epidemic is caused by the increased consumption of processed foods from multinational food corporations. The increase in food production will positively impact energy consumption from non-renewable energy sources. Second, obesity reduces physical and outdoor activities, increasing the intensive use of home appliances and motorized transportation and screen-viewing leisure activities, consequently increasing energy consumption from non-renewable energy sources. A third possible way can be related indirectly to economic growth, globalization, and urbanisation. This empirical investigation will contribute to the literature and for policymakers and governments. Therefore, this investigation will encourage the development of initiatives to mitigate the obesity problem in European countries and accelerate the energy transition process. Finally, this investigation will open a new topic in the literature regarding the correlation between the obesity epidemic and environmental degradation.

The impact of globalisation on carbon dioxide emissions was analysed in a panel data of thirteen LAC countries for the period from 1991 to 2012. A panel autoregressive distributed lag methodology was used to decompose the total effects of globalisation on carbon dioxide emissions both in short- and long-run components. There is evidence that globalisation contributes to reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the long-run. A possible explanation of this result is that the process of globalisation causes technological enhancement in LAC countries, which contributes to a decrease in environmental degradation. Globalisation has other implications, such as the transfer of responsibility from the state to the private sector, where this transfer corresponds to the shifting of regulatory attributes to independent governmental regulatory authorities, in other words, "regulation for competition".

The contribution of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) to mitigating/reducing fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions was researched through a panel of 29 European countries from 2010 to 2019, using the econometric technique of method of moments quantile regression (MM-QR). This research is innovative by connecting the increasing use of electric vehicles with PM2.5 emissions and using the MM-QR to explore this relationship. Two models were estimated to analyse their contribution to reducing PM2.5 in European countries. The nonlinearity of the models were confirmed. The statistical significance of the variables is strong for the upper quantiles (75th and 90th), resulting from the effectiveness of European policies to improve the environment. Electric vehicles (BEVs and PHEVs), economic growth, and urbanisation reduce the PM2.5 problem, but energy intensity and fossil fuel consumption aggravate it. This research sheds light on how policymakers and governments can design proposals to encourage electric vehicle use in European countries. To achieve the long-term climate neutral strategy by 2050, it is imperative to implement effective policies to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and promote the adoption of electric vehicles using renewable energy sources.

A relação não linear entre Crescimento Económico e Profundidade Financeira foi avaliada com recurso a um painel de 25 países europeus, para o período compreendido entre 1996 e 2011. Estes países partilham padrões espaciais comuns como foi confirmado pela presença de dependência seccional. Além disso, foi identificado heterocedasticidade e autocorrelação de primeira ordem no painel. O teste de Hausman suporta a presença de heterogeneidade, selecionando o modelo de efeitos fixos. Foi utilizado o estimador Driscoll e Kraay com efeitos fixos, que é robusto a estes fenómenos. A não linearidade da relação entre Crescimento Económico e Profundidade Financeira foi confirmada pelo U-teste de Lind e Mehlum. Pode-se concluir que o incremento na profundidade financeira restringe o Crescimento Economico para os países europeus. Como tal, a dimensão ótima do sector financeiro deve ser considerada pelos decisores de política económica.

The augmented energy-growth nexus with globalization is analyzed for a panel of 43 countries between 1971 to 2013, by using na autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach. The impacts of economic, political and social globalization on energy-growth nexus are explored. The results are consistent with the presence of cointegration. Evidences of the traditional feedback hypothesis on the energy-growth nexus was found. Economic, political and social globalization have heterogenous impacts on the nexus. In general, globalization is a long-run driver of both energy consumption and economic growth. Accordingly, globalization should be promoted. In addition, restrictive energy policies should be avoided or carefully designed to no hamper economic growth. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

This paper examined the relationship between economic growth, inflation, stock market development, and banking sector development for a panel of sixteen high-income countries for the period from 2001 to 2016, by using the mechanism impulse response functions and Granger causality tests derived from a panel vector autoregressive model. The evidence of bidirectional causality between all variables in the model was found. Overall, feedback and supply-leading theories have been confirmed in the literature. A plus sign in the relationship between the development of the banking sector and the stock market with economic growth was found. Therefore, stock market development and banking sector development stimulate the economy.

AbstractIn the framework of an environmental Kuznets curve, the linkage between shadow economy and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions was evaluated for 145 countries from 1991 to 2017. In assessing the effect of the shadow economy on CO2 emissions, we used panel quantile regression, panel fixed effects, and panel smooth transition regression as estimation methods. In addition, to deal with parameter heterogeneity, we resorted to the procedure of Lin and Ng (2012). We found two country groups that share homogeneous parameters. No environmental Kuznets curve was found for the set of all countries. Nevertheless, one was found for each of the homogeneous parameter country groups. This result supports different turning points for different groups of countries. Shadow economy contributed to reducing CO2 emissions in group 1 and aggravated it in group 2. Manufacturing was revealed to be statistically significant for the countries of group 1. Fossil fuel rents increased the CO2 emissions, mainly in group 2. Urbanization contributed to the hike of CO2 emissions in both country groups but much more intensely for group 1. Evidence of a tendency for decreasing CO2 emissions was also found, reflecting the efficiency gains over time.

This article investigates the impact of trade openness and renewable energy on the consumption of fossil fuels for a panel of fourteen LAC countries over the period from 1990 to 2014. To this end, a PARDL model in unrestricted error-correction form is estimated, and robustness checks are performed by estimating a PNARDL model. The results of the PARDL model point indicate that the impact of economic growth and elasticity of trade openness are statistically significant at the 1% level and contribute to increased consumption of fossil fuels in the LAC countries. However, the impact and elasticity of consumption of renewable energy are statistically significant at 1% and 5% levels and thus contribute to decreasing consumption of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, the asymmetry of the impact of consumption of renewable energy and its elasticity decrease the consumption of fossil fuels. Therefore, the positive impact of trade openness on the consumption of fossil fuels suggests that the process of globalisation by trade liberalisation in the LAC countries is not sufficient to bring more investment that encourages R&D in energy efficiency technologies, and equipment that reduces the consumption of energy from non-renewable energy sources by households and firms.

Este artigo estuda o impacto da geração de energia eólica sobre o mercado de trabalho. O modelo Panel Data Vector Autoregressive (PVAR) foi utlizado para analisar um painel de noves países da União Europeia no período de 1992-2014. Os testes preliminares indicaram, a existência de cross-section dependence em todas a variáveis em logaritmos e primeiras diferenças, a estacionaridade das variáveis DLF e DLO, bem como a presença de efeitos fixos no modelo PVAR . Os resultados do modelo PVAR indicaram, que a produção de energia eólica tem um impacto positivo de 0.0002 sobre o mercado de trabalho.