Asymmetric effects of inflation instability and GDP growth volatility on environmental quality in Pakistan

Abstract

This study inspects the empirical association between inflation instability, GDP growth volatility, and the environmental quality in Pakistan, covering the period 1975-2018 by using an asymmetric autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) methodological approach. The asymmetric ARDL results document that positive and negative shocks of inflation instability have different effects on environmental quality. Negative shocks of inflation instability have a positive influence on carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) and nitrous oxide emissions (N2O), while positive shocks of inflation instability have insignificant effects in the long run. Asymmetric findings also suggest that positive and negative fluctuations in GDP growth volatility affect CO2 and N2O emissions differently, while they have insignificant results on methane emissions (CH4) in the long run. Additionally, in the short-run, positive and negative shocks of inflation instability and GDP growth volatility behave differently in terms of their impact on pollution emissions. Based on these findings, the study opens up innovative intuitions for policymakers to support a robust role of economic stability in attaining targets relevant to pollution reduction.