Political Freedom, Human Development and Environmental Sustainability in Iran

Document Type : RESEARCH PAPER

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Department of Economic Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran

2 Master of Science Student, Department of Economic Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran

3 Ph.D. student, Department of Economic Sciences, Faculty of Economics and Administrations, Urmia University, Iran

Abstract

Environmental sustainability as an approach to development; It makes it possible to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations. This approach helps to preserve natural resources, biodiversity, reduce negative effects on the environment, improve the quality of human life and develop a sustainable economy. Simply put, environmental sustainability means a balance between economic development, social sustainability and environmental preservation. Achieving environmental sustainability requires identifying and determining the factors affecting it. Therefore, the main objective of the present study is to examine the effect of political freedom and human development on environmental sustainability according to three indicators of Ecological footprint (EFP), carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) and Environmental Performance Index (EPI) in Iran over the period of time (1990 - 2022) using the Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS). Also, in this research, the human development index (HDI), which includes the economic and social dimensions of development, has been used to investigate the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). The research results show that human development index (HDI) has a negative effect and political freedom (FPI) has a positive and significant effect on environmental sustainability. On the other hand, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis test also showed that the square of the human development index has a positive and significant effect on environmental sustainability; As a result, based on this hypothesis, the inverted U relationship between human development index (HDI) and environmental sustainability is confirmed in this study. Other results of this research show that energy consumption (EC) has a negative effect, urbanization rate (URB) and commercial openness (OPE) have a positive and significant effect on environmental sustainability in the long term.

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Main Subjects

References

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