The effect of economic and political globalization on the ecological ‎footprint in Iran: Application of the nonlinear asymmetric ‎cointegration approach ‎

Introduction ‎:

The main challenge to global sustainable development is environmental degradation due to ‎increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The ecological footprint index is widely used to ‎measure environmental degradation and represents environmental sustainability. The ‎Ecological Footprint Index is an indicator of environmental sustainability and is the most ‎appropriate indicator for assessing sustainable development - in the sense of meeting ‎current needs without reducing environmental capacity - for future generations in a region. ‎Given the importance of political and economic globalization and its impact on ‎environmental quality, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between ‎economic and political globalization with the index of environmental degradation in Iran. ‎The innovation of this study compared to previous studies is prominent in two dimensions. ‎First, in most studies, the emission of one types of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, is ‎considered as an indicator of environmental degradation, and this shows a small part of the ‎degradation. Therefore, the use of ecological footprint as a measure of environmental ‎degradation is the present study innovation‏.‏

Methodology ‎:

KOF is a comprehensive index of globalization that includes three very important ‎economic, social and political aspects. The economic aspect of globalization index includes ‎trade, foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign investment in stocks (FPI) - buying bonds ‎and stocks of companies in stock exchange transactions and deposit bills in foreign banks - ‎Barriers to trade, such as restrictions and tariffs, include barriers to covert imports, tariffs, ‎international trade taxes, and capital controls on real flows. Therefore, this index, by ‎increasing the volume and variety of exchanges of goods, services and capital flows, etc., ‎has a high power in explaining and reflecting the growth of economic interdependence of ‎countries. Political globalization includes the diversification of embassies in the country, ‎membership in international organizations, ratification of international treaties, as well as ‎participation in UN Security Council missions. Social globalization includes variables that ‎affect personal audiences such as telephone traffic and international tourism, information ‎streams such as the Internet, newspapers, etc.. Importantly, in addition to economic ‎globalization, the index also includes social and political globalization. Therefore, this ‎index is more comprehensive than other indicators used in previous studies. To calculate the ‎KOF index, each of the variables - the variables of economic, social and political ‎globalization - is converted to a number in the range of 1 to 100. The number 100 indicates ‎the highest value and the number 1 indicates the lowest value. The data is converted to ‎percentages of the original distribution, then weights are selected for each subgroup. These ‎weights are calculated for all countries and all years using principal component analysis. ‎Finally, the general index, which is a composite index, is obtained from the weighted sum ‎of these sub-indices. In order to investigate the asymmetric effects of economic ‎globalization on the ecological footprint, the non-linear extended nonlinear regression ‎‎(NARDL) approach was used. The extended NARDL is the extended-interrupt self-‎regression (ARDL) method, with the advantage that the asymmetric effects of the ‎independent variables, that is, the effect of positive and negative changes of the explanatory ‎variables in the short and long run, can not be examined separately. In this regard, ‎ecological footprint, GDP per capita at constant price in year 2010, foreign direct ‎investment, fossil fuel consumption, the effect of economic globalization and the political ‎globalization are considered as explanatory variables. In order to examine the effect of ‎economic globalization and the effect of political globalization, these variables include ‎positive and negative effects. In this study, the data are time series (1995-219) and these ‎data are from three sources: Global Footprint Network to extract ecological footprint data, ‎http://globalization.kof.ethz to extract KOF data and other required data were collected ‎from the World Bank.‎

Conclusion ‎:

In this study, the asymmetric effects of economic and political globalization on the ‎ecological footprint for Iran were investigated in long-run and short-run. The results showed ‎that the negative relationship between ecological footprint and political globalization ‎confirms the hypothesis of global environmental management and shows that political ‎globalization reduces human environmental demand. Based on the results of the research, ‎suggestions are presented as follows.‎Given the direct relationship between ecological footprint and energy consumption, through ‎policies including increased investment in energy saving, energy efficiency projects and ‎investments in Increasing the role of renewable and clean energy sources can reduce energy ‎consumption and consequently the ecological footprint. Therefore, reducing energy ‎subsidies and imposing environmental taxes on illicit uses can be an effective step towards ‎reducing the ecological footprint and increasing the ecological capacity to protect the ‎interests of the future. Given the focus of the ecological footprint on how much people ‎should reduce consumption, increase technology, and improve their behavior to achieve ‎sustainability, adopting environmental protection policies to control and reduce the ‎ecological footprint is essential. In this regard, awareness is needed to reduce the extreme ‎use of ecosystems and the use of efficient technology and control of industrial pollution.‎The results of the long-run relationship showed that the negative shocks of economic ‎globalization in the long run increase the ecological footprint, so it is suggested that the ‎increase in trade liberalization to emphasize the management of its negative effects on the ‎country's environmental capacity as a principle. Therefore, it is necessary for the ‎government to develop business measures and strategies in order to increase environmental ‎protection. The development of trade with a focus on environmental protection can be a ‎useful step in improving the ecological orientation of the country. Therefore, it is ‎recommended that goods that produce more pollutants domestically be imported from ‎abroad. In this case, economic globalization can be a useful step in improving the ‎technology of production and improving the quality of the environment.‎On the other hand, the negative effect of political globalization on the ecological footprint ‎index confirms the hypothesis of global management of environment and shows that ‎political globalization reduces the demand for environment. Therefore, reducing political ‎instability and conflicts in the region is essential to reduce environmental degradation. ‎Political instability and conflict not only weaken economic performance, but also shorten ‎the horizons of economic policymakers, thereby weakening macroeconomic performance ‎and environmental regulation.‎