Effective Governance Policies And Its Moderating Impact On Environmental Quality Of BRICS Countries

A newly developed framework is formulated to explore the moderating role of effective governance policies in the growth-environment nexus in the EKC framework for a panel of BRICS countries.It is important to note in growth-environment nexus;none of the studies explicitly highlighted the role of governance is vital in explaining the inconclusive results of growth on environmental quality.So,the present study merely a first step towards the quantitative assessment with moderating effect of governance on the relationship between growth and environmental quality.To address the issue of climate change,the moderating role of governance would guide to the policy-makers to adopt new techniques for the implementation of environmental regulation.In addition,this study also investigates the impact of human capital and biocapacity on the environmental quality of the BRICS economies by covering the period of 1991-2014.Against the devastating majority of statistical work,cointegration,and multivariate Granger causality approaches,the present study employs "Generalized Method of Movement "(GMM)and Granger causality test to confirm the causal relationship between the selected variables.Outcomes of regression analysis are divided into two phases;first phase includes the outcomes of direct effect or without moderation and second phase consists on moderating effect(interaction effect).Estimated results of first phase reveal that the coefficient of economic growth is positive and statistically significant.The positive and negative association of GDP and its square with environmental quality demonstrate that an inverted U-shaped association(i.e.,validate EKC hypothesis)exists between ecological footprint and economic growth of the BRICS economies.The coefficient of biocapacity has shown positive and highly statistically significant association with ecological footprint.The reported result of Government Effectiveness indicates that Government Effectiveness has positive and statistically significant association with ecological footprint.Overall,from my empirical findings,I infer that the moderating role of governance is crucial in the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation.The empirical findings of the study are directed toward some important policy implications.The novelty of the study is that it explores the direct and indirect impact of effective governance on environmental degradation.As governance effectiveness moderates and weakens the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation,policies need to strengthen the governance that may improve the environment without affecting economic growth.So,policymakers of this region(i.e.,BRICS)need to consider indirect impact also with direct influence of governance to get true picture of sustainability in BRICS economies.The governments of BRICS countries need to take preventive measures to mitigate the effects of their high growth of urbanization and provide better facilities to improve the living standards of the people in rural areas.