Environmental Economics
Mahdieh Rezagholizadeh; Yousef Eisazadeh roshan; Parisa Shahbedini
Abstract
Introduction: Financial development is a process through which the quantity, quality, and efficiency of financial intermediation services are improved. The more the financial system develops, the more financial resources are provided for the development of renewable energy technologies, and as a result, ...
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Introduction: Financial development is a process through which the quantity, quality, and efficiency of financial intermediation services are improved. The more the financial system develops, the more financial resources are provided for the development of renewable energy technologies, and as a result, it can have positive environmental impacts by changing the energy supply mix and reducing pollutant emissions. Financial development can affect the level of CO2 emissions and environmental quality through its impact on economic growth, capital attraction, industrial activities, energy efficiency, technological innovation, investment costs in projects, increased use of renewable energy sources, financial provision, and allocation of credit for renewable energy projects.The importance of utilizing renewable energy sources and reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on one hand, and the need for financial resources and large-scale investments for renewable energy projects on the other, highlights the role and significance of financial development in the level of environmental pollution through CO2 emissions. Therefore, considering the role and importance of financial development in the value of CO2 emissions as a criterion for environmental pollution and the significance of examining this relationship at the provincial level, this study investigates the relationship between financial development and CO2 emissions in the provinces of Iran and at the end, will test the environmental Kuznets hypothesis.Materials and Methods: This study uses the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) method to investigate the relationship between financial development and CO2 emissions in the provinces of Iran during the period of 2009-2021 and answers the question of whether financial development in the provinces of Iran is environmentally friendly (Green) or not. In order to investigate the difference in the relationship between financial development and carbon dioxide emissions at the level of the country's provinces, all provinces are divided into two categories of developed and less developed provinces based on the report of the Economic Statistics Research Group of Iran Statistics Center (2022).In this study, in order to investigate the impact of financial development and other independent variables on carbon dioxide emissions, a Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) method is used to analyze the coefficients. For this purpose, the following model is considered:CO2it=αi+β1FDit+β2GDPit+β3EIit+β4URBit+ɛit (1)Where:CO2it: Carbon dioxide emissions in each provinceFDit: Composite index of financial developmentGDPit: Real per capita gross domestic product of the provincesEIit: Energy intensityURBit: Urbanization rateAlso, in the following, in order to test the Kuznets hypothesis in the studied provinces, model (1) is specified as model (2):CO2it=αi+β1FDit+β2FD2it+β3GDPit+β4EIit+β5URBit (2)Where:FD2it: The square of financial development. Results: The results of the estimation of models indicate that in both groups of provinces in the country, financial development is positively significantly associated with carbon dioxide emissions. Additionally, energy intensity, gross domestic product, and urbanization rate are also found to be positively and significantly related to carbon dioxide emissions. The results suggest that financial development may initially lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions, but with further development, this effect is reversed, resulting in a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. This finding confirms the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve theory in the studied provinces during the period under investigation.Discussion: The estimation results indicate that financial development in the provinces of Iran will lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. Furthermore, further investigations confirm the validity of the Kuznets relationship in the provinces of Iran, meaning that in the initial stages of development, the impact of financial development on carbon dioxide emissions will be positive, but over time this relationship becomes negative, leading to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.