O13 - Economic Development: Agriculture; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Other Primary ProductsNávrat zpět

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasize the importance of energy by making affordable and clean fuel access the focus of Goal 7. Energy poverty is a widespread issue globally, particularly in developing countries. Thus, this investigation inspects the drivers of energy poverty in Brazil using data from 1997Q1 to 2022Q4. The study introduces the wavelet Zivot-Andrews (WZA) unit root test, which modifies the traditional Zivot-Andrews (ZA) test by incorporating wavelet analysis, allowing decomposition of the time series into different time scales (short-term, medium-term and long-term). This enables the WZA test to capture structural breaks and unit roots more effectively across various time scales. In addition, the study employs wavelet quantile-on-quantile regression. The results show that across all quantiles and time scales, an increase in financial globalization and economic policy uncertainty increases energy poverty. The study also shows that female political participation increases energy poverty in the short and long term. In contrast, in the medium term and across all quantiles, female political participation decreases energy poverty. Lastly, an increase in financial development decreases energy poverty across all quantiles and periods. Based on these findings, policies are suggested.

Emerging economies are consistently targeting advanced approaches to attain sustainable development while reducing their risk exposure and factors simultaneously. This research examines the influence of political risk, digitization and environmental policies, along with a set of economic and environmental factors, on the sustainable development of the BRICS economies. For the period from 1990 to 2020, the diagnostic tests confirmed a mixed order of integration. Therefore, the autoregressive distributed lag test is utilized and the results show that political risk, mineral resources and exports are harmful to sustainable development in the short run but significantly enhance sustainable development in the long run. On the other hand, environmental technologies are positively associated with sustainable development in the short run but transform into negative development in the long run. These diverse influences occur in the short and long run. The results indicate a consistent influence of digitization (positive) in both the short and long run. The long-run results are authenticated using panel fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS). Furthermore, the panel causality test validates diverse inferences regarding the causal association between the variables. Following the empirical outcomes, we recommend policies regarding equitable implementation of digital technologies, enhanced investment in environmental and green technologies, equitable resource management and a reduction in political risk, which could stimulate sustainable development.

This study investigates the relationship between natural disasters, institutional factors, environmental poverty and climate-related migration. The analysis focuses on 112 countries, representing 95% of natural disasters globally from 1992 to 2021, using regression models and clustering countries by their vulnerability and resilience. Key findings show that although improved transport infrastructure can aid in recovery, it may also increase exposure to disaster-affected areas, causing higher mortality. At the same time, sanitation availability significantly reduces mortality and migration in affected regions. The study highlights the need for disaster response strategies tailored to countries' vulnerability levels while emphasising the role of institutions in mitigating climate-related migration and enhancing resilience. Policymakers should prioritise investments in resilient infrastructure, strengthen disaster preparedness strategies tailored to each country's vulnerability profile and focus on enhancing personal freedom, institutional trust and governance capacity. These measures can collectively reduce number of refugees, mitigate impacts of disasters and promote long-term stability in high-risk regions.

In the empirical determination of the factors influencing the clean energy transition, the BRICS economies have initiated various policy reforms, such as increased R&D budgets, improvements in technology and political stability. This study analyses the critical role of political risk and economic growth, natural resources, research and development and technological innovation in the clean energy transition in the period 1990-2022. Using panel econometric approaches, this study confirms the heterogeneity of slopes and cross-sectional dependence. Using linear regression with the heteroscedastic panel-corrected standard error approach, the results show that economic expansion, political risk and the quadratic R&D term significantly enhance the clean energy transition. However, natural resources, conventional technological innovation and research and development expenditures are the leading barriers to a clean energy transition in the region. The robustness of these results is validated by a series of panel regressions. Following the empirical outcomes, this study recommends rapid enhancement of the research and development budget, strengthening of governance and institutions and investment in technological innovation to attain a sustainable transition towards clean energy sources.

This study investigates the asymmetric effects of political stability and corruption on ecological footprint using time series data from 1984 to 2021 for Pakistan. The paper uses the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) method to get accurate results regarding the positive and negative shocks of political stability. Besides, the NARDL method is utilized to identify the cointegrating link between the parameters, with a particular focus on uncovering asymmetric consequences in the long term. In addition, this research also includes natural resources, urbanization and economic progress in the model. The study results show that (i) political instability in Pakistan reduces environmental quality in both shocks; (ii) control of corruption increases the air quality in the negative shock; (iii) natural resources and urban population positively affect environmental quality; and (iv) economic progress has a favourable effect on environmental worsening. Additionally, the findings of the NARDL estimates and the outcomes of the robustness check are consistent. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the general policy recommendation highlights the need for policymakers to vigorously synchronize their efforts to contend with the severe environmental degradation and political risk in Pakistan.

In today's rapidly evolving world, the transition towards green energy remains momentous in attaining ecological sustainability. In this respect, the present study intends to elucidate factors influencing the green energy transition in OECD economies from 2004 to 2020. We use several diagnostic measures to validate the heterogeneity of slopes and cross-sectional dependence in the panel. Nevertheless, cointegration exists between the study variables, such as green energy, political risk, economic risk, financial risk, human capital, eco-innovation and energy efficiency. Using fixed effect and random effect approaches, we conclude that political risk, human capital and energy efficiency are significant and leading drivers of green energy transition in the region. However, economic expansion, financial risk and economic risk are significant barriers to transitioning towards green energy in the selected economies. The outcomes are robust, as authenticated by linear regression with a heteroskedastic panel-corrected standard error approach. We recommend the minimization of political, financial and economic risk, while improvements in environment-related R&D investment could further boost the transition process towards green energy.

The main objective of this study is to analyse the impact of environmental poverty (EP), environmental regulation (ENVR), financial constraints (FNC) and political instability (PIST) on carbon dioxide emissions (abbr. CO₂e), with other variables including international collaboration in green technology development (ICGTD), hybrid electric vehicle technology (HEVT) and gross domestic product per capita (GDPPC). The augmented mean group estimator approach is chosen to gauge the long-term coefficients. The findings indicate that strengthening ENVR in Asian countries can reduce CO₂e effectively, highlighting the importance of policy-driven ecological interventions. In contrast, EP, PIST and FNC might worsen CO₂e, emphasizing the significance of political and economic stability for the region's environmental sustainability. The results also show that an increased ICGTD and HEVT contribute directly to the reduction of CO₂e in Asian countries. Even though economic growth is a sign of development, rising GDPPC in these economies is linked to higher CO₂e, demonstrating that the current association between economic growth and achieving carbon neutrality could be better.

The interaction between socioeconomic disparities and environmental degradation, which is highly pertinent to the issue of climate change, has garnered significant scholarly attention globally. Despite the critical importance of climate change in political economy, research into labour markets and environmental policies remains limited in the current literature. Therefore, the present study discusses the implementation of China's low-carbon city pilot policy (LCCPP) as an exogenous policy shock. Utilizing A-share data from listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges spanning the period 2007-2020, we employ a multiperiod difference-in-differences model to scrutinize the influence and mechanisms of LCCPP on employment. Our study reveals a significant increase in employment levels within pilot cities due to LCCPP. The findings remain stable even after the results are subjected to a battery of robustness tests. Mechanistic analysis suggests that the policy substantially increases employment through the scale effect and factor substitution effect. Heterogeneous results demonstrate the policy's substantial promotion of employment levels in pilot cities across state-owned enterprises, the first and second industrial sectors and low-carbon industry enterprises. These research findings support steering China's economic development towards a low-carbon, environmentally sustainable growth transformation. Furthermore, policymakers should encourage the LCCPP to stimulate employment while addressing socioeconomic disparities and environmental concerns simultaneously in political economy.

This study investigates the relationship between economic complexity, globalization, energy consumption patterns and CO₂ emissions in 12 energy-importing emerging economies from 1996 to 2020. Employing panel data analysis, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is utilized. The findings reveal a U-shaped relationship between economic complexity and air pollution, supporting the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory. Renewable energy demonstrates a significant ability to reduce CO₂ emissions over the long term, while fossil fuel use exacerbates environmental degradation. Economic globalization is associated with increased CO₂ emissions, contradicting expectations. The short-term results align with the long-term findings, highlighting significant country-specific variations. The policy implications highlight the necessity of promoting renewable energy adoption and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. This research contributes to EKC literature by focusing on energy-importing economies, emphasizing the importance of multidimensional analyses in environmental policy formulation. The study underscores the critical role of renewable energy investment and carbon pricing strategies in mitigating environmental degradation while encouraging sustainable development pathways.

This research covers the literature gap by investigating the factors of economic expansion (GDP), total natural resources (TNRNT), political risk index (PRI) and technological innovation (TI) and their impact on the renewable electricity output (REOT) in the G7 economies, covering the period 1990-2022. The research utilizes novel MMQREG as the primary method, while BSQR is a non-parametric robustness check method. A pairwise Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test is employed to find out the causal connection between variables. The diagnostic outcomes show that the modelled variables are static after the first difference while long-run equilibrium is also present. Moreover, the outcomes suggest that GDP negatively influences REOT across quantiles while TNRNT and PRI stimulate the use of REOT in G7 economies across quantiles. Moreover, TI positively influences REOT but is inconclusive across quantiles. The robustness check analysis provides similar and valid outcomes. Lowering political risk is also considered important for energy transition in terms of cleaner energy.

Electricity production strategies of countries rely on fossil fuel-based electricity generation. Environmental regulations (ER) are needed to shift to green electricity for achieving energy transition, but corruption and bureaucracy can influence ER, energy transition and ecological quality. Hence, this research considers two important constituents of country risks including corruption and bureaucracy in the model while understanding the connections between green electricity, ER and the load capacity factor (LCF) in BRICS from 1992 to 2018. The research chooses a recent proxy of ecological quality (i.e., LCF), which effectively measures the ecological quality and indicates the possibility of sustainable growth by using biocapacity and ecological footprint figures. The results of the research disclose that green electricity Granger-causes and enhances the LCF, whereas controlling corruption and enhancing bureaucracy quality improves ecological quality. ER improves environmental quality and the load capacity curve (LCC) hypothesis also exists. Lastly, policy directions are discussed.

Unclean energy consumption stimulates carbon footprint (CF) leading to increased environmental pollution. Renewable energy transition (ETN) can curb the CF; however, political risk can obstruct this process. Hence, this study analyses the connections between economic growth, ETN and CF by considering political risk and financial expansion in a panel of top 10 emitters from 1992 to 2020 using the method of moment quantile regressions (MM-QR). The results elucidate that ETN significantly reduces the CF in the top emitters. Thus, expanding the ETN is beneficial for reducing the CF and promoting sustainable development. Improving the political environment by reducing the political risk (POLR) helps curb the CF. The inverted U-shaped connection between CF and economic growth shows that increased growth can reduce CF if top emitters can continue to promote energy transition and political stability. The positive impact of financial expansion on CF becomes insignificant at higher quantiles. Finally, policy suggestions are discussed.

In the pursuit of sustainable development, economies such as China are placing a paramount emphasis on significantly augmenting the utilization of renewable energy sources. This marks a departure from conventional research approaches that solely focused on macroeconomic determinants while investigating patterns of renewable energy consumption. Thus, this research pursues to witness the relationship between the political risk index (PRI), renewable electricity output (RELOP), public-private partnership investment in energy (PPINENR), and renewable energy consumption (RECNS) in China from 1984 to 2022. For data estimations, this study utilizes time series methods, which include DF-GLS and Johansen cointegration for unit root and long-run equilibrium with FMOLS, DOLS and CCR as primary methods. The research also employs the least squares method with break years and robust least squares as robustness check methods while for causal relationships, we deploy the Granger causality approach. The outcomes assert that variables are found stationary at differences and long-run equilibrium is confirmed among variables. The empirical estimations predict that GDP and PPINENR reduce the RECNS in China in both short and long term. Furthermore, PRI and RELOP enhance renewable energy consumption in the short as well as long run. Therefore, policymakers should mostly focus on the encouraging role of PPINENR towards renewable electricity to enhance RECNS in developing economies, particularly in China. To achieve the targets of COP27, China should increase its focus on the efficient utilization of public-private partnership investments and also manage the political risks in the economy to promote renewable energy consumption and achieve a sustainable environment. Moreover, the causality analysis unearths that PRI could be utilized along with other variables to enhance RECNS in China. The robustness check asserts similar and robust outcomes.

This research investigates the effect of political stability and geopolitical risk on environmental sustainability (ES) by considering R&D investments in nuclear and renewable energy. Con- sidering the high political stability and recent energy crisis and increasing geopolitical risk, the study focuses on three leading European countries. We use the load capacity factor, include data between 1985/1 and 2020/12, and apply quantile on quantile regression (QQ), Granger causality in quantiles (GQ), and quantile regression (QR) models. The study finds that in higher quantiles (i) increasing political stability stimulates the ES in Sweden and the United Kingdom; (ii) increasing geopolitical risk supports the ES in France; (iii) R&D investments increase the ES in all the countries; (iv) there are generally causal effects from the explanatory variables to the ES except some quantiles (0.45-0.50) in all the countries; (v) the power effects of the variables differ according to countries, quantiles and variables.

The conventional view of the sustainability of social development is based on the works of the Roman Club, particularly the book "The Limits to Growth" by Donella Meadows and her colleagues (1972). In their opinion, the human population and economy are depleting the wealth of the Earth and pollutants and wastes are burdening the environment. However, the concern that mineral resources will be depleted is unsubstantiated. Environmental economics argues that a higher number of people and a higher income make resources scarcer on a short-term basis. For investors and entrepreneurs, higher prices represent an opportunity and an incentive to search for solutions. Many of them will not succeed in this search and they will bear the costs on their own. However, in a free society, the solutions are eventually found. And in the long run, we are better off thanks to the new discoveries than if the original problems had never occurred.

The paper evaluates the position of the Czech Republic in the development of qualitatively based competitive advantage, firstly in terms of the export structure changes according to industry classifications of factor and technology intensities. The given approach has been used extensively in international comparisons, though its explanatory value differs according to the actual quality intensity of economic activities. Even the countries with a limited extent of R&D may show up a high shares of technology intensive exports produced in FDI branches, which, however, mostly consist of assembly operations on imported components. The second view of the qualitatively based competitiveness focuses on the role of foreign companies in internationalization of production and trade, and, specifically, in domestic knowledge intensive activities. Their development makes a condition for an efficient technology transfer, the intensity of which differs according to the motivations of foreign investment in R&D.

This contribution is focused on the core changes and trends in the globalized world economy. As the globalization advances, countries and regions are challenged to shape more flexible arrangements to ensure that new risks are dealt with and the new opportunities are exploited. It is Europe's regions that are coming to the fore in matters as capacity - building and growth - related activities. As a locally rooted approach, regional cooperation can harness institutions, encourage creativity and take into account local labor, skills, infrastructure, economic mentality, business environment and communities at different levels of decision - making. Globalization has affected the magnitudes, composition and directions of capital flows. Namely in the sphere of foreign direct investment (FDI) that constitute a patent complex of capital, experience, knowledge and operational links with partners abroad. FDI contribute to the economic advancement, especially in the emerging market economies, and has proved to be resilient during financial crises. Attention is also set on motivation, benefits and disputed aspects of FDI.

This article describes core changes, both theoretical and practical, of DC's action unity and its new features after the globalization acceleration during the 90's and the beginning of 21st century. Following re-defintion of basic terminological issues the authors show that the "unity of purpose" famous in the 70's has not yet evaporated as predicted by some authors in the late 80's. The case is analyzed and ilustrated by the failure of 5's WTO Summit in Cancún, September 2003 and also negotiations connected with the creation and activities of Group 21. The problems of agricultural subsidies are in the centre of attention with possible impact on international trade as mainly EU and its new members (including the Czech Republic) is concerned. However, the authors predict that the new LC's "unity of purpose" will be more volatile and fragile than before.