Growth and determinants of CO2 emissions: evidence from selected Asian emerging economies

The study analyzes the impact of economic growth, energy consumption, foreign direct investment inflows, population, population density, labor force, and trade openness on carbon dioxide emissions in seven emerging Asian economies over the period 1991–2017. To this end, it uses cross-section dependence test, second-generation unit root test, panel cointegration, and the bound test for cointegration and the autoregressive distributed lag estimations. The findings of the study are as follows: first, the kinked exponential growth is estimated for all the variables on the individual data set of seven countries. Second, the study finds a positive association of economic growth, energy consumption, population, and population density on carbon dioxide emissions. Third, it finds that the foreign direct investment inflows are negatively associated with carbon dioxide emissions. The paper also suggests potential implications and some future research avenues.