Trade has become a carrier for transporting both clean and dirty (pollution-intensive) goods, services and technologies between countries. While the impact of trade on economic development has been reported in the extant literature, insufficient and inconsistent results exist between pollution-embedded trade and environmental performance. Using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Generalized method of moments and panel quantiles via Moments, this study explored the role of government integrity on trade-environment nexus in the post-Kyoto protocol era for 79 countries between 2008 and 2018. The empirical results suggest that per capita GDP and government integrity improve environmental performance whereas trade impedes it. In the quantile regression model, the effect of government integrity is significant at the median quantiles with a stronger effect in countries with higher environmental performance. The negative effect of trade is not only significant from the lower quantile through the median quantile but decreases in magnitude, tracking from countries with lower to higher environmental performance. While the positive effect of government integrity is significant from the median quantile onwards, the negative effect of trade is only significant in the lower quantile. Robustness analysis from the GMM dynamic panel estimation technique shows that interacting government integrity with trade yields a positive and significant coefficient. Meaning that improved government integrity averts the negative effect of trade on environmental performance. The study suggests that outsourcing the regulations of trade-oriented multinational companies operating in developing economies with weak institutions to global humanitarian organisations such as the United Nations would be the first step to reduce trade-attributable environmental degradation.

Coal is crucial for economic progress but equally baneful to the environment. Thus, the coal consumption-environmental sustainability nexus attracted the attention of both policymakers and scholars. This study evaluates the coal consumption-environment nexus in developed and developing countries over the period 2000–2020. We used panel data econometric techniques and the Augmented Anderson–Hsiao (AAH) two-step GMM estimator to assess and compare the impact of coal consumption on CO₂. The findings revealed that the consumption of coal aggravates environmental pollution and hinders environmental sustainability. Thus, this study confirms the environment-destroying effect of coal consumption. However, the findings reveal that the negative consequence of coal consumption on the environment is more for the sample of developed countries than that of developing countries. This suggests that coal use harms the environment developed economies than the developing countries. Specifically, we found that the carbon emissions emanating from a one percent (1%) increase in coal consumption of the developed countries is about six-fold more than that of the developing countries. Therefore, this study suggests a gradual phase-out, rather than sudden phase-out, of coal consumption with greater emphasis on developed countries. The implementation of the coal phase-out policy and the removal of fossil fuel subsidies should start with the developed countries or be made more stringent in such countries than the developing economies. The developed countries should relinquish a greater proportion of their coal consumption than the developing countries.

Purpose: The primacy of institutions for economic progress has been established in the literature. Yet, less research attention is paid to the existence and persistence of weak economic institutions in Africa. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the determinants of the quality of economic institutions in Africa.Design/methodology/approach: Hausman–Taylor instrumental variable estimator of panel regression was employed for a sample of 43 Sub-Sahara African countries over the period 1995–2017.Findings: The study finds that the existence and persistence of weak economic institutions in Africa is more of design than destiny. That is, weak economic institutions are created and sustained more by bad political institutions rather than cultural diversity and geographical factors. Therefore, strong political institutions need to be entrenched to reverse the equilibrium of weak economic institutions and dismal economic performance in the continent.Practical implications: The study provides deep understanding of the determinants of economic institutions. This is imperative for policy makers, development agencies and stakeholders in designing viable economic policies and programs for the continent.Originality/value: The novelty of the study is rooted in the examination of the factors responsible for the development and persistence of weak economic institutions in Africa. The idea is original because previous studies focus on political institutions and neglected economic institutions.