This paper examines whether the 1997 Asian financial crisis affected the renewable energy/carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions relationship differently when compared to the 2008 global financial crises. Using the Dynamic Panel Data Model, we examine separately the impact of the 1997 crisis and the 2008 crises on the stated relationship for annual data between the 1987–2018 period for a group of high, upper-middle, and lower middle-income countries. Our findings suggest that the results were crisis and country specific. For the overall sample, the relationship between the two variables was positive (and significant post-1997 and pre-2008 crises) but negative post-2008 crisis. In contrast, the positive relationship remained unchanged for the lower middle-income subsample through the two crises. We also find evidence that the 1997 Asian crisis altered the relationship differently than the 2008 financial crisis especially for the upper and middle-income groups. Clearly, reduction of CO₂ emissions may not be guaranteed even if host countries adopt renewable energy sources since country income levels and the nature of the crisis may matter. Future research may consider how the degree of pollution controls and differential costs of renewable energy adoption in countries may alter this relationship.

We use annual data over the 2002–2016 period with Panel Smooth Transition Regression model to examine how the 2008 global financial crisis affected the relationship between FDI inflows into developed, developing, and transition host countries and host country corruption levels. We also partitioned the data for each type of host into corruption regimes (low, moderate, and high) and examined the results separately for each regime. Our results indicate that the crisis altered the FDI inflows/corruption relationships and generally depend on the development level of the host country and corruption regimes. In addition, our evidence suggests a strong correlation between selected host country macroeconomic variables like financial depth, gross capital formation, and FDI outflows and sample variables. In turn, the crisis also affects these variables. Factor analysis results using all sample variables and separately for donor/aid recipient countries indicate the emergence of a few key factors (host country economic environment, host country international involvement, and host country economic growth potential) that are also affected by the crisis. Our analysis strongly suggests that the FDI/corruption is a complex one and corruption prone host countries must consider improvements to corruption, financial depth and domestic gross capital simultaneously to attract FDI inflows.

The impacts of renewable energy adoption and environmental sustainability ratings on the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve and the pollution haven hypothesis are examined using annual balanced panel data from 64 middle and low-income countries and spanning the 2005–2014 period. We show that the GDP per capita/CO₂ emissions per capita relationship is an inverse S curve for the full sample of low and middle-income countries and for each subsample. The renewable energy/CO₂ emissions per capita relationship is an inverse N curve for the full and the middle-income samples, but a V curve for the low-income sample. The foreign direct investment net inflows/CO₂ emissions per capita relationship is an N curve for the full and the middle-income samples, and a positive relationship in the low-income subsample. High levels of government environmental sustainability ratings in low-income countries with relatively higher incomes can attract foreign direct investment net inflows while reducing pollution. In contrast, middle-income countries with high environmental sustainability ratings can attract foreign direct investment net inflows only if they allow small increases in pollution.