This novel research looked into the role of public-private partnership investment in energy in affecting Pakistan’s long-term environmental sustainability. Employing time series data from 1992 to 2018 and utilizing the autoregressive distributive lag model (ARDL) model, we found a long-term equilibrium association of ecological footprint with public-private partnership investment in energy, technological innovation, economic growth, and trade openness. Our outcomes showed a significant positive association between public-private partnership investment in energy and ecological footprint in the long-run and the short-run, specifying that the increase in public-private partnership investment in energy affects the environmental sustainability of Pakistan. Similarly, our study confirmed that technological innovation, economic growth, and trade openness increase the ecological footprint in Pakistan. It demonstrates that these factors are unfavorable to the sustainable environment in Pakistan. Furthermore, robustness check findings are analogous to the results of ARDL estimates, utilizing dynamic ordinary least squares and fully modified ordinary least squares. On the basis of the research conclusions, a multi-pronged sustainable development goal (SDG) model was proposed that addresses SDG 8 and SDG 13 while incorporating SDG 17 as a medium.

The purpose of innovation is to consume fewer natural resources in order to create sustainable performance; therefore, innovation can ease the pressure of the ecological load and promote the sustainable development of the economy. Taking the 269 enterprises listed on the main board of the electronic information industry from 2010 to 2019 as samples, using the threshold panel data model, the nonlinear relationship between the knowledge-based network structure hole and the short-term and long-term innovation performance of the enterprises were studied, and the threshold effect of R&D investment intensity was discussed. When the R&D investment intensity is from 1.96% to 15.96%, the knowledge-based network structure hole has a significant positive impact on short-term innovation performance. When the R&D investment intensity is from 5.72% to 10.64%, the knowledge-based network structure hole has a significant positive effect on long-term innovation performance. Lower R&D investment intensity can make the knowledge-based network structure hole promote the increase of short term innovation performance, but to make the knowledge-based network structure hole have a positive impact on long term innovation performance, the R&D investment intensity should be increased by more than 5.72%. When R&D investment intensity is not higher than 15.96%, the knowledge-based network structure hole has a significant positive impact on short term innovation performance, but to make the knowledge-based network structure hole maintain the positive effect on long term innovation performance, R&D investment intensity should not exceed 10.64%. Therefore, enterprises should be guided to optimize the knowledge-based network structure according to the R&D investment intensity in order to improve the short term and long-term innovation performance of an enterprise. These research results can help enterprises to save resources and promote the sustainable development of the economy.

In modeling the impact of sovereign credit rating (CR) on financial markets, a considerable amount of the literature to date has been devoted to examining the short-term impact of CR on financial markets via an event-study methodology. The argument has been established that financial markets are sensitive to CR announcements, and market reactions to such announcements (both upgrading and degrading) are not the same. Using the framework of an autoregressive distributed lag setting, the present study attempted to empirically test the linear and non-linear impacts of CR on financial market development (FMD) in the European region. Nonlinear specification is capable to capture asymmetries (upgrades and downgrades) in the estimation process, which have not been considered to date in financial market literature. Overall findings identified long-term asymmetries, while there was little evidence supporting the existence of short-term asymmetries. Thus, the present study has extended the financial market literature on the subject of the asymmetrical impact of a sovereign CR on European FMD and provides useful input for policy formation taking into account these nonlinearities. Policies solely based upon linear models may be misleading and detrimental.