Gulzara Tariq

Environmental contamination has grown to be a major issue for policymakers in recent years. This proposed study fills this void by presenting an empirical analysis that considers the effects of different green (hydropower, geothermal, solar, nuclear, and wind energy) and non-green (coal, oil, and gas) energy productions on ecological and carbon footprints. Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square is used to estimate the long-term associations among selected variables in the top ten nations that export electricity with data spanning 1990 to 2021. The findings demonstrate that geothermal and hydro energy production is expanding, which has raised ecological and carbon footprints. Additionally, it is discovered that the rise in energy production from nuclear, solar, and wind resources decreased the ecological and carbon footprints. In contrast, results show that oil production minimized environmental deterioration while coal and gas production increased it. This research also discovered that research and development (R&D) negatively correlated with ecological and carbon footprints within economies. These findings hold significant policy implications, particularly for nations aiming to modernize their green energy sectors. Promoting environmentally sustainable geothermal and hydropower technologies, alongside increased investment in R&D, emerges as a strategic pathway toward sustainable development.

This study compares attitudes towards women's emancipation in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, providing insights into their levels of female emancipation. The research utilized individual‐level micro‐data from World Values Survey (WVS) waves 3–7, occurring five times between 1995 and 2022, to address five indicators related to female emancipation, which are analysed applying descriptive statistics and regressions. The study indicates that female emancipation is generally higher in Bangladesh and India compared to Pakistan, but there is a decreasing trend in support for female emancipation in all three countries. This study recommends that policymakers prioritize education and public awareness campaigns to foster supportive attitudes towards women's rights and empowerment across the region.

This study investigates how eco‐innovation, economic complexity, hydropower consumption, nuclear energy consumption, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, economic growth, and financial development affect carbon neutrality in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) nations. The study illustrates numerous important conclusions by using panel data from 1990 to 2020 and the pooled mean group (PMG) approach: Economic complexity and financial growth show a long‐term tendency to increase carbon neutrality but have the opposite impact in the near term. Hydropower usage and eco‐innovation have consistently increased carbon neutrality in both the long and short term. Nuclear energy utilization decreases carbon neutrality in BRI nations. Carbon neutrality decreases over time with increased FDI inflows but rises in the short run. Carbon neutrality, hydropower use, eco‐innovation, economic complexity, and foreign direct investment all exhibit bidirectional connections. There is unidirectional causation between carbon neutrality, nuclear energy usage, and economic development. Based on these findings, this research suggests the use of ecologically friendly and energy‐efficient technology, as well as prioritizing investments in hydroelectric energy to reduce environmental damage. It also emphasizes the significance of putting in place proactive measures in BRI nations to increase carbon neutrality and promote sustainable development.

The demand for resources and energy increases as the global population grows, leading to increased ecological and carbon footprints. This study aims to contribute to the global sustainability agenda by assessing the impact of green energy projects, green energy finance, and green governance on reducing ecological and carbon footprints in G7 countries from 1990 to 2020. The findings reveal that there is a noteworthy negative association between ecological footprint, green governance, geothermal energy consumption, hydro-power consumption, and green energy finance. However, a significant positive correlation exists between ecological footprint and biofuels. Additionally, the outcomes lend support to the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory in G7 nations. Carbon footprints are evaluated in this study as an alternate measure, and the results are similarly robust. These insights hold the potential to guide policy decisions and investment strategies, and promote the shift to a low-carbon economy by highlighting the connections between the adoption of green energies, green energy finance, green governance, and carbon and ecological footprint reduction, thus paving the way for a more equitable and sustainable future for all.

Sustainable development objectives heavily promote the advancement of cleaner production technologies to reduce emissions and conserve the average world temperature. For the years 1990–2020, the USA, China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and Australia are studied by using the panel fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS). The results show that clean fuels and technologies and a consumer price index are helpful to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from food system which reduce environmental degradation. Contrarily, increased income and food production contribute to environmental deterioration. There are bidirectional Dumitrescu-Hurlin causal relationships between access to clean fuels and technology and greenhouse gas emissions from food system; real income and greenhouse gas emissions from food system; income and access to clean fuels and technology; income and consumer price index; and income and food production index. This research also revealed a unidirectional causation between the consumer price index and greenhouse gas emissions from food system; food production index and greenhouse gas emissions from food system; access to clean fuels and technology and the consumer price index; and access to clean fuels and technology and the food production index. These findings provide policymakers with relevant content: to promote the goal of green growth, the government should implement consistent measures to subsidize the food industry. Incorporating carbon pricing into food system emissions models would serve to lower production of polluting foods, which would enhance air quality indicators. Finally, a consumer price index should be controlled by controlling prices of green technologies in environmental modeling to improve sustainable development globally and reduce environmental pollution.

This study investigates the impact of corporate governance characteristics and political connections of directors on the profitability of banks in Pakistan. The study uses the data of 26 domestic banks over the latest and large period of 2007–2016. Our findings firstly affirm that bank profitability is negatively affected by the presence of politically connected directors on the board, reporting significantly lower return on assets, return on equity, net interest margin, and profit margin. Secondly, our findings also affirm the negative political influence on the sustainability of the banking industry, reporting significantly lower return on assets, return on equity, net interest margin, and profit margin during the government transition of banks having politically connected directors sitting on their board. Our findings further report an inverted U-shaped relationship between board size and bank profitability, suggesting that a board size beyond 8–9 members decreases the profitability. The study further finds a positive impact of board composition, board independence, and director compensation on bank profitability, while also finding a negative impact of frequent board meetings, presence of foreign directors, and audit committee independence.

The idiosyncratic and knowledge-intense nature of the financial institutions requires them to rely more on intangible than on tangible resources. Over the past two decades, researchers have been motivated to embark on the relationship between intellectual capital (IC) and performance of financial institutions. Considering the knowledge-based intellect as a critical skill of this era, the current study examines the impact of IC on the performance of 111 Pakistani financial institutions (PFIs) over the period 2007–2018. Two IC measures, i.e., value-added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) and modified value-added intellectual coefficient (MVAIC), were applied to examine the impact of IC on profitability and productivity. Robust results from the fixed effect regression and generalized method of momentum affirm the inverted U-shaped relationship between IC and performance, suggesting that the increase in IC performance of PFIs increases their profitability and productivity up to a certain level, and after that, a further increase in IC performance decreases profitability and productivity. The results further suggest that human capital is the most influencing intellectual resource which produces higher intellectual efficiencies and increases the performance significantly. The results of this study are likely to be helpful for management, regulators, policy makers, and academics and provide insights into the importance of IC and suggest that the investment in the IC improves the sustainable performance to a certain extent.

The study contributes to the existing literature on intellectual capital (IC) performance and profitability by extending evidence from Pakistan. The study examines the impact of IC performance on the profitability of Pakistani financial institutions. It further examines how corporate governance, bank specific, industry specific, and country specific indicators effect Pakistani banks’ profitability. The result reports both the linear and non-linear impact of IC performance on profitability, which affirms an inverted U–shaped relationship. Among the three value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) components, capital employed efficiency (CEE), and human capital efficiency (HCE) are found to have a significantly positive and structural capital efficiency (SCE) is found to have a significantly negative impact on bank profitability. The study notes a positive impact on profitability of factors like board independence, directors’ compensation, and higher capitalization. It reports a negative impact on profitability of factors like board size, board meetings, credit risk, industry concentration and economic growth. The results also indicate low profitability of banks during the period of government transition. The study provides insights into the important profitability drives and suggests that the impact of investment in IC on profitability is limited to an extent. The findings of this study are likely to be useful for policy makers, management, and academics.