Innovation and globalization fosters a tendency towards multiparty collaboration and strategic contacts among nations. A similar path was followed by the Chinese administration in 2013, with its “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI). The most important objective of the present fact-finding study was to demonstrate the links between economic growth, energy consumption, urbanization, gross fixed capital formation, trade openness, financial development and carbon emissions (ecological degradation) from a panel of 47 BRI economies, over a time span of 1980 to 2016. Dynamic panel estimations (dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS)) were engaged to examine the long-run links between the subjected variables. Synchronized outcomes for the full panel show that energy consumption, gross fixed capital formation, economic growth, financial development, and urbanization unfavorably led to environmental degradation (CO₂ emissions). However, trade openness is negatively correlated with emissions. Furthermore, pairwise panel Granger causative estimations justified bi-directional links from all regressors towards CO₂ emissions, except for trade openness, which had unidirectional ties with environmental quality. In cross-country, long-run assessments, different results were found, with CO₂ emissions being greatly increased by economic growth in all countries and energy consumption in 30 countries; other predictors testified to some mixed interactions with CO₂ emissions in the country-level examination. The reported investigation provides some noteworthy guiding principles and policy inferences aimed at governments and ecological supervisory administrations, suggesting assertive moves towards truncated used of carbon fossil fuels and dependency on renewable energy, establishing waste and water treatment plants, familiarizing themselves with the concept of a green economy, and making the general public aware of eco-friendly investments in BRI economies.

This study attempts to investigate the short-run and long-run impact of formal credit (CR) and climate change (CC, via CO₂ emissions) on agricultural production (AP) in Pakistan. In addition, other imperative control variables included in this study comprise technology factors (tractors (TRs) and tube wells (TWs), energy consumption (EC), and labor force (LF). This study used annual data covering the period 1983–2016. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach is applied to explore the cointegration between the underlying variables and used the granger causality test under the vector error correction model (VECM) context to determine the direction of causality among the variables. The findings of the ARDL bounds-testing approach suggest that there is a long-term relationship among formal credit, climate change (CO₂ emissions), technology factors (tractors and tube wells), energy consumption, labor force, and agricultural production. The empirical results reveal that formal credit, technology use (tractors), and labor force have a positive and significant impact on agricultural production in both the short-run and long-run. CO₂ emissions have a positive impact on agricultural production but are not significant in either case. Finally, a unidirectional relationship is established from formal credit to agricultural production; labor force to agricultural production; and electricity consumption and technology factors (tractors and tube wells) to CO₂ emissions. The recent study claims that formal institutions should guarantee the redeployment of their services/amenities to those who call for them acutely, with the purpose of boosting their approach to monetary credit facilities and empower farmers to further the resilience that will capitalize on post-fruitage enrichments. Finally, considering that climatic change is a widespread fact with regional community trajectories, perhaps the global community may provide reassurance for loaning to smallholder agriculturalists through central and commercial banks by protecting the moneys that banks lend to the agriculturalists towards supporting climatic change espousal strategies.

Purpose: This study aims to examine the impact of macroeconomic fundamentals on exchange rates of selected South Asian economies during 1981-2013. Design/methodology/approach: The authors have used two econometric approaches to the data. For the pooled sample, estimated generalized least square (EGLS) and the two-stage least square method are applied. For the panel data, the authors have used the panel generalized method of moments and ordinary least squares (OLS) methods. Findings: The results suggest that macroeconomic factors have a significant impact on exchange rates. The robust findings highlight that improvements in domestic economic and political systems are crucial for a successful exchange rate policy. Originality/value: The existing literature on exchange rate fundamentals have either focused on exchange rates and international trade or investigated the relationship for the developed economies. Covering a period of more than three decades, and using both pooled and panel estimations, our study is unique in terms of its focus on the South Asian economies.