TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating the impact of human capital on the ecological footprint in India
T2 - An empirical analysis
AU - Ahmed, Zahoor
AU - Wang, Zhaohua
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2019/9/1
Y1 - 2019/9/1
N2 - Many recent studies have focused on the influencing factors of the ecological footprint, but less attention has been given to human capital. Human capital, which is based on education and rate of return on education, may reduce the ecological footprint since environmental issues are human-induced. The current study investigates the impact of human capital on the ecological footprint in India for the period 1971 to 2014. The outcomes of the newly developed combined cointegration test of Bayer and Hanck disclose the long-run equilibrium relationship between variables. The findings reveal a significant negative contribution of human capital to the ecological footprint. The results of the causality test show that human capital Granger causes the ecological footprint without any feedback. In addition, energy consumption adds to the ecological footprint, while the relationship between economic growth and ecological footprint follows an inverted U-shaped pattern. The findings unveil the potential to reduce the ecological footprint by developing human capital.
AB - Many recent studies have focused on the influencing factors of the ecological footprint, but less attention has been given to human capital. Human capital, which is based on education and rate of return on education, may reduce the ecological footprint since environmental issues are human-induced. The current study investigates the impact of human capital on the ecological footprint in India for the period 1971 to 2014. The outcomes of the newly developed combined cointegration test of Bayer and Hanck disclose the long-run equilibrium relationship between variables. The findings reveal a significant negative contribution of human capital to the ecological footprint. The results of the causality test show that human capital Granger causes the ecological footprint without any feedback. In addition, energy consumption adds to the ecological footprint, while the relationship between economic growth and ecological footprint follows an inverted U-shaped pattern. The findings unveil the potential to reduce the ecological footprint by developing human capital.
KW - Bayer and Hanck cointegration test
KW - Ecological footprint
KW - Energy consumption
KW - Human capital in India
KW - Neutrality hypothesis
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85069651064
U2 - 10.1007/s11356-019-05911-7
DO - 10.1007/s11356-019-05911-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 31300988
AN - SCOPUS:85069651064
SN - 0944-1344
VL - 26
SP - 26782
EP - 26796
JO - Environmental Science and Pollution Research
JF - Environmental Science and Pollution Research
IS - 26
ER -
