Education, democracy, and pollution a nonlinear and panel causality frameworks

Abstract We consider in this paper the impact of democracy and education on pollution over the period 2002–2021 for a panel of 42 countries using the PMG-ARDL estimation technique. We consider different levels of economic development, of income and democracy. Our results show that a higher level of school enrollment (EDU) increases the level of pollution. Also improvement in the political life of developing countries can have less pollution. We also show that democratic low-income countries pollute more than democratic high-income countries. However, countries pollute more as they became more autocratic and when they are endowed with higher levels of schooling. More findings in our study show that democracy in developing countries yields better educational outcomes that in turn, improve pollution. Our results report that, above a certain level of education, the benefits in terms of awareness are wiped out by the pollution stemming from the boom in economic activity and growth in developing countries. However, the costs in terms of pollution are sponged by the environmental awareness stemming from the educational outcomes for developed countries. More findings in our study show that countries tend to benefit less from a democratic environment as they move to higher income levels. Our estimation show the existence of a bidirectional causal relationship between our variables of interest.