The Effects of Financial Development on the Quality of Environment in Iran (1973 - 2007)

Many studies have investigated the effects of economic growth, energy consumption and foreign trade on the pollutant emissions due to fossil fuels combustion. The consideration of financial development together with economic growth results in significant differences among findings. This paper examines the effects of financial development on environmental quality of Iran during 1973-2007 using an ARDL (Auto Regressive Distributed Lags) model. According to the results, the negative coefficient for financial development index shows the adverse effect of financial development on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Therefore, it is expected that increasing financial development will reduce the CO2 emissions.