This study examines the dynamic links between per capita CO₂ emission, economic growth, agricultural value added, renewable and non-renewable energy consumption and investigates the existence of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for a panel of E7 countries spanning the period 1990–2014. The estimates indicate that there is a positive relationship between CO₂ emissions and real GDP, non-renewable energy consumption and agricultural value added in the long run, whereas a negative relationship is represented between CO₂ emissions and square of real GDP and renewable energy consumption. The results of long-run estimates support the inverted U-shape EKC in these selected countries. Regarding the Granger causality analysis, bi-directional Granger causality exists between non-renewable energy consumption and CO₂ emissions in the long run. In regards policy implications and recommendations, E7 countries should keep on increasing the share of renewable energy for the sake of growth purposes in the agricultural sector, thereby reducing fossil energy consumption for environmental improvements.

Purpose: The existence of long memory and persistent volatility characteristics of cryptocurrencies justifies the investigation of return and volatility/shock spillovers between traditional financial market asset classes and cryptocurrencies. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamic relationship between the cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin and Ethereum, and stock market indices of G7 and E7 countries to analyze the return and volatility spillover patterns among these markets by means of multivariate (MGARCH) approach.Design/methodology/approach: Applying the newly developed VAR-GARCH-in mean framework with the BEKK representation, the empirical results reveal that there exists an evidence of mean and volatility spillover effects among Bitcoin and Ethereum as the proxies for the cryptocurrencies, and stock markets reviewed.Findings: Interestingly, the direction of the return and volatility spillover effects is unidirectional in most E7 countries, but bidirectional relationship was found in most G7 countries. This can be explained as the presence of a strong return and volatility interaction among G7 stock markets and crypto market.Originality/value: Overall, the results of this study are of particular interest for portfolio management since it provides insights for financial market participants to make better portfolio allocation decisions. It is also increasingly important to understand the volatility transmission mechanism across these markets to provide policymakers and regulatory bodies with guidance to eliminate the negative impact of cryptocurrency's volatility on the stability of financial markets.

Purpose: Considering the evolving importance of green finance, this study uses climate-related development mitigation finance as a proxy of green finance and investigates the impact of green finance on ecological footprint as an indicator of environmental quality along with the influence of economic growth, renewable energy, greenhouse gas emissions, trade openness and urbanization across 47 developing countries over the period 2000–2018. Design/methodology/approach: After finding the presence of cross-sectional dependency among variables, the second-generation panel unit root test was employed to detect the order of integration among the variables. Since all the variables were found to be stationary, Westerlund cointegration technique was employed to detect the long-run relationship among the variables. Then, the long-run elasticity among the dependent and independent variables was tested using fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and pooled mean group–autoregressive distributed lag (PMG–ARDL) approaches. Findings: The empirical findings suggest the presence of long-run relationship among all the variables, namely, ecological footprint, green finance, economic growth, renewable energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, trade openness and urbanization for the selected developing countries in the sample. Furthermore, economic growth, greenhouse gas emissions, trade openness and urbanization, all have a positive and significant impact on the ecological footprint, whereas renewable energy consumption and green finance have a significant and negative impact on the ecological footprint, which supports the view that environmental quality is improved with the greater use of renewable energy technologies and allocation of greater amounts of more green finance. Originality/value: The empirical results of this study offer policymakers and regulators some implications for environmental policy for protecting the countries from ecological issues.