Investigating the nexus between economic complexity, energy consumption and ecological footprint for the United States: New insights from quantile methods

Abstract

The prime objective of this study is to investigate the nexus between economic complexity, fossil fuels energy and ecological footprint in the United States. This is probably the first research to explore the role of economic complexity for environmental quality, in the objective to report new solutions for climate change issues. More specifically, the study investigates the linear and asymmetric impacts of economic complexity and fossil fuel energy use on ecological footprint by using the extensive data spanning the period of 1965Q1 to 2017Q4. For empirical analysis, the authors employ the newly developed quantile unit root test, quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL), and quantile Granger causality tests. The quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) analysis confirmed that economic complexity and fossil fuel energy consumption significantly enhance the ecological footprint in the United States. Further, the quantile causality empirics suggested the existence of causal relationships between economic complexity and energy consumption with the ecological footprint.