Do Human Capital and Export Diversification Decline or Augment CO2 Emissions? Empirical Evidence from the MINT Countries

This paper analyzes the consequence of human capital and export diversification on the CO₂emissions of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey (MINT). To attain the impartiality of the study, the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) is used on panel data from 1975-2010. The outcome from the PMG reveals that education (human capital) has a negative consequence on CO₂ in the long term. This indicates that an increase in education reduces the level of CO₂ emissions in the environment. Furthermore, export diversification is positively associated with carbon emissions in the long run. The findings also illustrated that the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is invalid for these nations. The outcomes of Dumitrescu and Hurlin (DH) causality provided evidence for unidirectional causation running from export diversification to CO₂ emissions. Also, a feedback association amid human capital and CO₂ emissions is found. However, economic expansion, the quadratic term of GDP, and energy consumption have no causal association with carbon emissions.