This study aims to determine the role of globalization, electronic government, financial development, concerning the moderation of institutional quality in reducing income inequality and poverty in One Belt One Road countries. The electronic government and regional integration of the economies of the One Belt One Road countries has increased globalization and can play a vital role in reducing income inequality and poverty. However, this globalization and digital transformation of government systems can only be beneficial in the presence of good institutional quality. The sample includes 64 One Belt One Road countries from 2003 to 2018. We employed a two-step system generalized method of moment (Sys-GMM) and a robustness check through Driscoll–Kraay standard errors regression. Our findings show that globalization, economic growth, e-government development, government expenditure, and inflation have a statistically significant and negative impact on income inequality and are key to eradicating income inequality and poverty. On the other hand, financial development, gross capital formation, and population size positively influence income inequality, which causes an increase in poverty and income inequality as financial development and population levels increase. Moderating variable institutional quality also positively impacts income inequality, which means that institutional quality in Belt and Road Countries is weak, as they are mostly developing countries that need to improve their systems. Moreover, the marginal effect also revealed that institutional quality has a corrective effect on the factors’ relationship with income inequality. Our findings endorse and conclude that globalization and e-government development improve economic growth and eradicate poverty and income inequality by boosting digitalization, investments, job creation, and wage increases for semi-skilled and unskilled human capital in Belt and Road countries. The sustainable utilization of financial and institutional resources plays a vital role in reducing income inequality and poverty in Belt and Road countries.

This research aimed to determine the dynamic endogeneity nexus among energy consumption (EC), financial development (FD), foreign direct investment (FDI), globalization (GI), and urbanization (URBAN). The study used 64 countries’ annual panel data on “the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)” from 2009 to 2019. Moreover, it employed a two-step system GMM, robust and results, that indicates financial development and urbanization are positively correlated with energy consumption, suggesting that these two factors raise the energy demand. Contrastingly, globalization negatively impacts energy demand, implying that global connectivity is essential for BRI countries. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has a positive but insignificant connection with energy consumption. Additionally, the Granger causality test was employed to explore the causal association among the variables, and outcomes reveal a bidirectional causal connection between FD and energy consumption. The study also suggests sustainable energy policy implications, which will be helpful to policymakers and governments for ensuring a balanced, sustainable growth.JEL Code: P48; P25; Q4; F6; G00; E2