This study explores the impact of environmental policies and human development on the CO₂ emissions for the period of 1995–2015 in the Group of Seven and BRICS economies in the long run through panel cointegration and causality tests. The causality analysis revealed a bilateral causality between environmental stringency policies and CO₂ emissions for Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and a unilateral causality from CO₂ emissions to the environmental stringency policies for Canada, China, and France. On the other hand, the analysis showed a bilateral causality between human development and CO₂ emissions for Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and unilateral causality from CO₂ emissions to human development in Brazil, Canada, China, and France. Furthermore, the cointegration analysis indicated that both environmental stringency policies and human development had a decreasing impact on the CO₂ emissions.

Environmental sustainability is one of three pillars of sustainability. However, a significant worldwide deterioration in the environment has been experienced since the Industrial Revolution, but the efforts to protect the environment date back to the 1970s. In this context, many economic and non-economic factors underlying environmental degradation have been investigated until today, but the influence of economic freedom indicators and education on the environment have been relatively less analyzed and the researchers have mainly focused on the influence of economic and institutional variables on the environment. Therefore, this paper investigates the reciprocal interplay among economic freedom indicators, education, and environment in EU member states over the 2000–2018 term by using a causality test with cross-sectional dependency and heterogeneity and taking the research gap into consideration. The causality analysis indicates that market-oriented economic structure and education can be beneficial in combatting environmental degradation.

Renewable energy has become a crucial factor for circular economies, sustainable development, and the environment given the limited non-renewable energy reserves and global environmental degradation mainly resulting from non-renewable energy use. This study explores the effect of educational attainment and economic growth on renewable energy use in a sample of selected emerging markets over the 2000–2018 period through causality and cointegration analyses. Causality analysis points out a significant unidirectional causality from indicators of educational attainment and economic growth to renewable energy use. In other words, educational attainment indicators and economic growth are significant determinants of renewable energy in the short run. Furthermore, the cointegration analysis ascertains a positive influence of indicators of educational attainment and economic growth on renewable energy use in the long run. The findings of both analyses indicate that educational attainment and economic growth have a significant impact on renewable energy use in the short and long term. Therefore, the policies fostering educational attainment can be used as instruments to increase the share of renewable energy use in total energy consumption.

Education is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations and is also a vital factor for nearly all the other SDGs. Therefore, factors underlying educational attainment are crucial for achieving the SDGs by 2030. In this context, the financial system has become critical in building various schools and covering educational expenditures such as teachers’ salaries, teaching materials, and training. This paper uses static and dynamic regression methods to study the impact of financial sector development, remittances, real GDP per capita, information and communications technologies (ICT) development, and globalization on educational attainment in 18 emerging economies over the 2000–2020 period. The results indicate that financial development, remittances, real GDP per capita, ICT development, and globalization positively impact educational attainment. Real GDP per capita, ICT development, globalization, and financial development have the highest impact of these factors. In contrast, remittances have a limited positive influence on educational attainment compared with other variables.

Accurate stock price forecasting is crucial for supporting informed investment decisions, effective risk management, and the identification of profitable market opportunities. Financial time series present considerable challenges for prediction due to their complex, nonlinear dynamics and sensitivity to a wide range of economic factors. Although various statistical methods have been developed to model the multidimensional relationships inherent in such datasets, advancements in big data technologies have greatly facilitated the recording, analysis, and interpretation of large-scale financial data, thereby accelerating the adoption of deep learning (DL) algorithms in this domain. In the present study, RNN-, LSTM-, and GRU-based models were developed to forecast the closing prices of two airline stocks, with hyperparameter optimization conducted via the Bayesian optimization algorithm. The dataset consisted of daily closing prices of THYAO and PGSUS stocks obtained from Yahoo Finance. Comparative analysis demonstrated that the GRU model yielded the highest accuracy for THYAO stock price prediction, achieving a MAPE of 3.05% and an RMSE of 3.195, whereas for PGSUS, the model achieved a MAPE of 3.97% and an RMSE of 3.232. Beyond its empirical contribution, this study also emphasizes the conceptual relevance of symmetry in financial forecasting. The proposed deep learning framework captures the balanced relationships and nonlinear interactions inherent in stock market behavior, reflecting both symmetry and asymmetry in market responses to economic factors.

Since the 1950s, the remarkable amount of global environmental degradation has heightened environmental concerns at both national and international levels. This shift has spurred intensive research into the causes of environmental degradation and potential remedies, including environmental taxes, fines, education, and regulations. The drivers of CO₂ emissions have been widely explored in the literature, but the nexus between business climate, human capital, and CO₂ emissions has not been examined sufficiently. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to delve into the interplay between renewable energy, business climate, human capital, and CO₂ emissions in BRICS countries from 2000 to 2020 using panel causality and cointegration tests. Our research hypotheses suggest that there are significant mutual interactions among renewable energy, business climate, human capital, and CO₂ emissions based on the associated literature. The results of the causality test verify the research hypotheses by uncovering a bidirectional causality between business climate, renewable energy use, human capital, and CO₂ emissions. Furthermore, the cointegration analysis reveals that increases in renewable energy use and human capital decrease CO₂ emissions at the panel level, but a positive business climate increases CO₂ emissions at the panel level. However, the impact of business climate on CO₂ emissions at the country level varies among BRICS economies based on environmental policies. In conclusion, investing in green energy technologies and education is a useful tool to decrease CO₂ emissions. In addition to this, the positive effect of business climate on CO₂ emissions should be balanced by regulations to increase environmental, social, and governance awareness of firms.