POPULATION DYNAMICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY: A CASE OF ASEAN COUNTRIES BY USING PANEL DATA ANALYSIS

Abstract

This informative study is majorly based on examining the nexus between the population dynamics and environmental sustainability for the 13 major Asian states over the time of 1990-2016. In order to fulfill this major objective, population density, population growth, and urbanization are studied as independent variables; environmental sustainability as a dependent variable; while literacy rate acts as a controlling variable within the relationship among major items. Initially, IPS and LLC based panel unit tests are considered to inspect either the variables are stationary or not. Then Pedroni's panel cointegration method is implemented to evaluate the cointegrating relationship between the tested variables. According to the results, a cointegrating relationship has existed among all the variables; and after this, the FMOLS and DOLS based estimators predict the coefficient of all the variables and concluded that population density and population growth positively enhanced the environmental sustainability due to excess literacy rate, but the urbanization negative impact on the environmental sustainability factor within the Asian nations. This paper is informative for the environmental policymakers and governments to ponder on the importance of literacy rate for the effective utilization of natural resources to develop a favorable environment. In addition, a lack of CO2 based major controlling value may affect this research's validity, which can be overcome by upcoming scholars.