The dynamic linkage between globalization, financial development, energy utilization, and environmental sustainability in GCC countries

This study investigates the impact of globalization, financial development, and energy utilization on environmental sustainability in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. GCC countries are currently experiencing higher demand and utilization of energy resources, high global integration, and improvements in the financial sector that poses serious environmental sustainability challenges. We have employed a relatively comprehensive proxy, i.e., ecological footprint for environmental sustainability and more advanced and robust econometric strategies (second-generation) to examine the impact of globalization, financial development, and energy utilization on environmental sustainability in the GCC countries, which have a significant departure from the extant literature. The results of this study show that globalization, financial development, and energy utilization are significantly deteriorating the environmental quality in the GCC countries. Additionally, in order to account for the national heterogeneity, we have performed country-specific analysis and interestingly, results reveal that globalization, financial development, and energy utilization negatively influence the environmental sustainability in each sample country that is consistent with the findings of overall panel. Furthermore, the findings are robust to various robustness checks that we have performed for checking the reliability of our main findings. This study also offers some useful policy implications to the stakeholder in general and specifically concerning the GCC countries for promoting their environmental sustainability.