Asymmetric Effect of Remittances on Environmental Degradation in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria has become one of the sub-Saharan Africa's largest remittance recipients. Despite the economic benefits of remittances, there is rising concern about their impact on environmental degradation. The NARDL approach was used to analyze time-series data from 1980 to 2018, to determine the impact of remittances increases and decreases on environmental degradation in Nigeria. The cointegration results show that remittances and environmental degradation have a long-run relationship. The study found that remittances is asymmetrically connected to ecological footprint (EFP) as a measure of environmental degradation both in the long run and short run whereas it is asymmetrically connected with CO2 as a measure of environmental degradation in the long run only. The study also found that remittances increase contributes to environmental degradation in Nigeria in the long run.