İnovasyon-Doğal Kaynak Bağımlılığı-Enerji-Ekolojik Ayak İzi Bağlantısı: Küresel İnovasyon Endeksi’ne Göre Seçilmiş Ülkelerden İçgörüler

The goal of this article is to evaluate the connections among innovation, natural resource dependency, energy and ecological footprint of the top ten countries in the global innovation index ranking in the 2009-2021 period within the framework of panel data methodology. Global innovation index, globalization and foreign direct investment parameters representing innovation are included in the model. It is seen that the literature on macroeconomic determinants of innovation capacity mostly focuses on the use of parameters such as financial development, infrastructure, eco-innovations, number of patents, research & development, foreign direct investments and human capital. However, it is noteworthy that these parameters, which are considered as innovation proxies, are evaluated separately in the studies. Therefore, in this study, the global innovation index is considered as a whole, thus expanding the scope of innovation. The situation in question is the article's contribution to the literature. The main findings from the Driscoll-Kraay robust estimator prove that, under statistical significance, an increase in the global innovation index reduces the ecological footprint, while natural resources and primary energy increase it. Causality findings point to one-way causality with no feedback effect from the global innovation index and foreign direct investments to the ecological footprint. In this context, policy implications indicate focusing on innovation as a way to reduce the ecological footprint, supporting natural resource dependency with renewable energies, and reducing non-renewable energy consumption in primary energy