The Effects of Globalization on the Environment

Authors

  • Arno Tausch (1) Department of Economics, Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary, (2) Department of Political Science, Innsbruck University, Vienna, Austria
  • Almas Heshmati (1) Jönköping International Business School (JIBS), Jönköping University, Sweden, (2) Department of Economics, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7902-4683

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25079/ukhjss.v2n1y2018.pp25-40

Keywords:

Environment, Globalization, International Migration, International Political Economy, International Relations

Abstract

In multiple standard OLS regression models, we test the effects of 26 standard predictor variables, including the ‘four freedoms’ of goods, capital, labour and services, on the following indicators of sustainable development: avoiding net trade of ecological footprint gha per person, Carbon emissions per million US dollars GDP, CO2 per capita, Environmental Performance Index (EPI), Global footprint per capita, Happy Life Years, Happy Planet Index, and ln (number of people per mill inhabitants 1980-2000 killed by natural disasters per year+1). Our research shows that the apprehensions of quantitative globalization critical research are fully vindicated by the significant negative environmental effects of the foreign savings rate. High foreign savings are indeed a driver of global footprint, and are a blockade against a satisfactory Happy Planet Index performance. The New International Division of Labour (NIDL)-model (Froebel et al., 1980) is one of the prime drivers of high CO2 per capita emissions. MNC penetration, the master variable of most quantitative dependency theories, blocks environmental performance (EPI-Index) and several other socially important processes. Worker remittances have a significant positive effect on the Happy Planet Index, and Happy Life Years.

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Author Biography

  • Almas Heshmati, (1) Jönköping International Business School (JIBS), Jönköping University, Sweden, (2) Department of Economics, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea.

    Almas Heshmati is Professor of Economics at the Jönköping University (Sweden) and Sogang University (South Korea). He was professor of Economics at the Korea University, Seoul National University, University of Kurdistan at Hawler, RATIO Institute, Stockholm and MTT Agrifood Research, Helsinki and Research Fellow at the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER), The United Nations University, Helsinki during 2001-2004. From 1998 until 2001, he was an Associate Professor of Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics. He has a Ph.D. degree from the University of Gothenburg (1994), where he held a Senior Researcher position until 1998. His research interests include agricultural economics, development economics, energy economics, industrial organization, labor, globalization, income distribution, productivity, efficiency, growth, health care and capital structure. He is member of the Scientific Committee of the International Conference on Panel Data. His publications include papers in the Agricultural Economics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Applied Economics, Applied Financial Economics, Econometric Reviews, Economic Theory, Empirical Economics, European Journal of Operational Research, Global Economy Journal, International Journal of Industrial Organization, International Journal of Production Economics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Journal of Economic Surveys, Journal of Productivity Analysis, Journal of the World System Research, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, and Structural Change and Economic Dynamics.

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Published

2018-06-30

Issue

Section

Research Articles

How to Cite

The Effects of Globalization on the Environment. (2018). UKH Journal of Social Sciences, 2(1), 25-40. https://doi.org/10.25079/ukhjss.v2n1y2018.pp25-40