Environmental Researches

Environmental Researches

Investigating the Effect of the Human Development Index on the Quality of the Environment in Oil and Non- Oil Countries of the Middle East

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Arsalan Biniaz 1
Saber Kalhori 2
Hassan Azarm 3
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Agriculture Economics, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
2 Researcher, Isfahan Agriculture and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, AREEO, Isfahan, Iran
3 Ph.D. of Agricultural Economics, Department of of Agricultural Economics, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
10.22034/eiap.2025.217504
Abstract
The Human Development Index (HDI), as a measure of the level of economic and social development, has an impact on the level of environmental degradation and pressure. So far, few researchers have focused on the relationship between human development and environmental quality through the lens of the traditional Environmental Kuznets Curve. In this context, the aim of this research is to assess the impact of the Human Development Index, together with other explanatory variables such as trade, energy consumption and urbanisation, on the Ecological Footprint Index in oil and non-oil countries in the Middle East. This study uses the combined data available in the databases of the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and Global Footprint Network for 8 oil countries (Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) and 5 non-oil countries (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates) in the Middle East region for the period 2000 to 2019. The two-stage difference GMM estimation method was also used to estimate the regression. In this method, after specifying the initial model, it is differentiated from the regression to remove the effects of cross from the model. Then, in the second step, the remaining residuals from the first step are used to balance the variance-covariance matrix.The results showed that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between human development and ecological footprint for non-oil countries. Thus, improving the human development index in the early stages of development by increasing the ecological footprint index damages the environment of non-oil countries. In spite of that with the improvement of the development level of the countries, this trend is reversed. However, a further increase in human development leads to continuous improvement of environmental quality in oil countries. Moreover, the results showed that the positive effect of energy consumption on the ecological footprint index is numerically more significant in oil countries than in non-oil countries. This is despite the fact that the effect coefficient of the trade volume variable on the ecological footprint index for oil and non-oil countries has been met, respectively, negatively and positively. The effect of the urbanization variable on the ecological footprint index for both groups of oil and non-oil countries is as expected and positive. Therefore, policymakers should be aware of the existing causality between human development and the ecological footprint index and focus on accelerating human development to reverse the current process of environmental degradation.
Keywords
Human Development Index
Ecological Footprint Index
Environmental Kuznets Curve
Middle East
Subjects
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Environmental Researches
Volume 15, Issue 30
Recerches
March 2025
Pages 138-123