Financial Inclusion and Environmental Quality in Developing Countries with the Highest Level of Pollution: Synergy or Destruction

Financial inclusion and climate change are two important aspects of development. The issue of whether financial inclusion will improve environmental quality or not is contentious. It can provide a good perspective for countries to plan for economic development. We estimate dynamic relationship between financial inclusion and CO2 emission in developing countries with the highest level of pollution. Firstly, by using causality test of Toda and Yamamoto (1995) bidirectional causality between environmental quality index and financial inclusion has been confirmed. Then, we use the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to construct index for financial inclusion. Then, a panel data model by the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) is estimated to address the endogeneity problem. We find that financial inclusion has led to higher CO2 emissions. Thus there have not been synergies between financial inclusion and environmental quality. Furthermore, our findings underscore the significant role of higher GDP, urbanization, industrialization, and increase in energy intensity contribute to higher level of carbon emissions in developing top-18 emitter countries. Interestingly, openness to trade seems to reduce CO2 emissions.