Catechizing the Environmental-Impression of Urbanization, Financial Development, and Political Institutions: A Circumstance of Ecological Footprints in 110 Developed and Less-Developed Countries

Abstract

This study stabs to probe the impact of financial development, urbanization, trade openness, political institutions, and energy consumption on the ecological footprints (EF), within the framework of EKC, of 110 countries congregated by income levels, over the time span of 1996–2016. The final outcome of cross-sectionally weighted Panel EGLS and multi-step A-B GMM evidently reinforced the existence of EKC hypothesis in case of EF both in developed and less-developed countries. This study finds the destructive environmental impact of composition effect and energy consumption while political institutions, trade openness, and urbanization have constructive environmental effect. Financial development reduces the human demand on nature only in less-developed countries. The ultimate consequences of this study are equipped with several policy recommendations for the concerned authorities.