The Impact Of Financial Development On Environmental Degradation

China officially used the term "Belt&Road initiative(BRI)" in 2015,containing 65 economies including 24 from Europe,15 from the Middle East and North Africa,26 Asian;2,11,5 and 8 form East Asia,Southeast Asia,Central Asia,and South Asia,respectively around the globe.These countries are comprised of 38.5%,62.3%,30%,and 24%of land area,population,GDP,and household consumption of the world,respectively.Besides,the agriculture sector accounts for more than 25,and 40 percent of GDP and employment,respectively,in BRI member states.The BRI economies canvas the primary economic cooperation zone from the Baltic Sea to the western Pacific.BRI milestones include economic openness,increase the free flow of regional trade,inclusive growth,and efficient utilization of resources,market integration,and policy coordination in the region and digital growth along with vision 2030 of sustainable development goals(SDGs).The rapid economic and financial growth leading to environmental degradation(END)has diverted efforts towards the betterment of the environment around the globe.Henceforward,the policy-makers and environmentalists have great concerns the environmental degradation due to financial growth of BRI economies.The issues of financial development indicators,environmental degradation,energy disparities,gross domestic product,and foreign direct investment are never new about BRI.In keeping the healthy development of BRI economies in view to fill these gaps in the literature,it is significant to figure out to what extent financial development influences environmental degradation.Empirical results will help policymakers develop clearer visions for sustainable development and will make them more concerned about the impact of financial economic development on environmental degradation.Hence,the prime concern of this research work is to explore "the effect of financial development on environmental degradation of BRI,as seen region and economy-wise" to control environmental degradation along with sustainable development.The novel contributions of the this dissertation are in following areas:(1)From global prospective of Environmental Kuznets Curve(EKC)hypothesis,this dissertation reveals the EKC regarding the environmental degradation-financial development and environment degradation-economy nexuses,respectively.The dynamics among the financial development and environmental degradation enhances the theoretical analysis across the globe.Further,this study conducted an EKC empirical test of national finance and environment in the Belt and Road region,and the analysis of financial development and carbon footprint provides corresponding policy recommendations for financial reform and environmental sustainability.(2)This study introduces and applies the information theory via entropy approach to measure the energy consumption inequalities for BRI and its regions.Information theory evaluates the inter and intra-regional energy consumption inequalities.It also provides a temporal analysis of regional energy consumption inequalities.Interand intra-regional energy consumption inequalities analysis is also introduced in financial development-environmental degradation nexus to devise better energy policy in BRI.(3)Agriculture sector is directly link with food security and environment.Most of existing literature contains single country analysis but the present study has modelled the forest and agriculture sector in nexus of financial developmentand environmental degradation for BRI region and it's participant economies.The short and long-run marginal impacts are estimated to devise better agriculture policies regarding the environmental degradation.The BRI economy-wise analysis enlarges the exiting literature in fields of macroeconomics and environmental economics.