Green growth in belt and road initiative countries: exploring the interplay of agriculture production, technological innovation and environmental pollution

The most significant affliction of the contemporary age is the heightened environmental pollution resulting from the negligent utilization of natural and synthetic resources. The key objective of the current study is to investigate the impact of agriculture value added, technological novelties, poverty mitigation, renewable energy use, and urbanization on environmental pollution in the 42 Belt and Road Initiative lower-middle-income countries. To calculate comprehensive outcomes, three decades of most recent data from 1990 to 2019, along with different analytical methodologies, Westerlund bootstrap LM co-integration test, CS-ARDL model, Dumitrescu, Hurlin & Karavias, and Sarafidis causality tests are taken under consideration. Initially, empirical results reveal the existence of stable long-run association amidst variables. Secondly, the CS-ARDL model results reveal that, except for urbanization, all other explanatory variables negatively influence environmental pollution in both long- and short-run time spans. Finally, both causality tests show bidirectional causality between all the regressors and environmental pollution, excluding technological novelties. These empirical findings support diverse policy implications that help mitigate environmental pollution in the study area, such as using renewable energy in agriculture production, focusing on technological novelties, replacing traditional manufacturing technology with modern ones, and reducing poverty through aggressive transfer of growth benefits to lower-income groups.