Towards Global Sustainable Development: The Role of Financial Innovation and Technological Advancements

The importance of metaverse and blockchain technologies in today's global landscape cannot be overstated. These innovative technologies offer transformative potential for various sectors, including economics, by enhancing connectivity, security and transparency. The present study leverages these technologies to investigate their dynamic impacts, in conjunction with geopolitical risk, on global economic cycles to navigate the challenges of an interconnected world. To ensure the reliability of our findings, this study employs two proxies to gauge economic cycles: global green economic growth and global environmental sustainability. By utilizing daily data, this study reveals several noteworthy findings. First, the quantile-var-based network analysis demonstrates a robust directional connection among the variables in our model. Second, the wavelet quantile correlation technique uncovers the significant role of metaverse technology in influencing economic cycles by promoting global green economic growth and global environmental sustainability across all time horizons (short, medium and long term). Third, economic cycles exhibit a negative association with financial innovation and a positive connection with geopolitical risk across all timeframes. Fourth, the continuous wavelet transform causality test identifies a substantial causal relationship running from metaverse technology, financial innovation and geopolitical risk to economic cycles. Based on our empirical results, this study recommends that the global economy should continue investing in metaverse and blockchain technologies to address economic cycles in the future.