Interplay between socio-economic challenges, environmental sustainability and the moderating role of government effectiveness in the Med-9 countries

Abstract

The presence of most Med-9 countries in the periphery regions in Europe compounds the problem of growth disparity and environmental decimation complicating government’s decision on which objective to pursue, this study intends to investigate the moderating role of government effectiveness in socioeconomic challenges and environmental quality nexus in Med-9 countries. The study employed the Instrumental Variable Generalized Method of Moments as its main econometric technique and relied on Augmented Mean Group technique for robustness check. Findings from the IV-GMM analysis showed that the interaction between government effectiveness and urban population increased environmental decay, while the interaction between government effectiveness, public debt, unemployment and net migration offered a mitigating path to environmental sustainability especially at higher levels of government effectiveness. Country-specific analysis unbundles the above results across selected countries in the Med-9 group. Suitable policy recommendations are rendered within the manuscript.