Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effects of financial liberalization and trade openness on the economic growth of two countries, namely, Pakistan and India for the period 1985-2014.Design/methodology/approach: This study uses the autoregressive distributed lag technique, which allows mixed order of integration. In addition, it uses the principal component method to create an index for financial liberalization to examine how it affects the economic growth of the selected countries.Findings: The findings reveal that in the short and long run, trade openness has positive effect on the Pakistan’s economic growth while the financial liberalization has positive impact only in the long run. In the case of India, both financial liberalization and trade openness positively and significantly influence the economic growth in the short and long run.Practical implications: By comparing the results of both countries, trade openness and financial liberalization increase the economic growth of India more than that of Pakistan. These results suggest that Pakistan should consider appropriate positive policies regarding financial liberalization and trade openness to achieve high and stable economic growth in the future.Originality/value: This study creates financial liberalization index by using the principal component analysis method to explain the role of financial liberalization in the economic growth of Pakistan and India. In addition, it makes comparison of the results based on which country benefits most from the liberalization of trade and financial sectors. Only very few studies have examined these countries, yet their results have remained inconclusive as well.

This paper investigates the influences of biomass energy, fossil fuel, and some controlled variables on CO₂ emission in African countries over the 1980–2014 period. The study employs pool mean group (PMG), mean group (MG), and dynamic fixed effect (DFE) estimators. In addition, it employs weighted fully modified ordinary least squares and weighted dynamic ordinary least squares to validate the robustness of estimates. The results reveal that the relation of fossil fuel with CO₂ is positively significant. Conversely, biomass energy exerts a significant negative impact on CO₂. In addition, the dampening effect of biomass energy utilization on CO₂ emission helps to validate the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis.

Purpose- This paper investigates the influences of biomass energy use, fossil fuel, income, trade openness, and population growth on carbon dioxide (C0₂) emission in African countries over the 1980–2014 period. Design/methodology/approach- The study employs pool mean group (PMG), mean group (MG), and dynamic fixed effect (DFE) estimators that resolve the issue of heterogeneity bias. In addition, it employs weighted fully modified ordinary least squares, and weighted dynamic ordinary least squares to validate the robustness of PMG, MG, and DFE estimates. Findings- The results from each of these estimators complement one another and both suggest that the relation of fossil fuel use and population growth with CO₂ emission is positively significant. Conversely, we find that trade openness and biomass energy use exert significant negative impact on carbon emission. Additionally, the dampening effect of biomass energy utilization on CO₂ emission helps to validate Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for those countries. Originality/value- The role of biomass in determining environmental quality has been investigated by studies for a few developed economies and developing countries without reaching consensus in terms of their findings. As indicated by the literature, such study is wanting in African countries, and this motivates the present study. More so, with focus on the role of biomass in CO₂ emission, this study first considers sixteen countries from all the regions on the African continent. The findings of this study will assist policy makers in making useful environmental and sustainable energy policy that can be embraced as regional policy.