Determinants of Environmental Degradation under the Perspective of Globalization: A Panel Analysis of Selected MENA Nations

This paper has examined the determinants of environmental degradation under the perspective of globalization in the case of selected MENA nations (Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Qatar, Lebanon, Egypt, Bahrain, Iran, Morocco, Israel, Kuwait, Oman and Tunisia) over the period of 1980 to 2013. ADF - Fisher Chi-square, Im, Pesaran and Shin W-stat, Levin, Lin & Chu t*, and PP-Fisher Chi-square unit root tests are used for analyzing the stationarity of the variables. This study uses Panel ARDL approach for analyzing the co-integration among the variables. The causality between the variables is checked with the help of Granger Causality/Block Exogeneity Wald Tests. The estimated results of the study show that consumption of energy, economic growth, globalization and density of population have significant and positive relation with quality of environment in case of MENA nations. The results of this study show that most of the independent variables have causal relation with environmental degradation over the selected time period. The study concludes that inverted U-shaped KEC is not existed in the case of MENA nations.