Estimating the effect of technological innovations on environmental degradation: empirical evidence from selected ASEAN and SAARC countries

Over the last few decades, both South and Southeast Asian regions have witnessed noteworthy economic development but unfortunately could not manage to mitigate the looming threat of climate change. Several initiatives have been taken recently to achieve sustainable development goals via technological innovations and the adoption of renewable energy. Given this milieu, it becomes pertinent to examine how technological innovations have assisted the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation and Association of Southeast Asian Nations to combat environmental challenges. To address the research gap, this study investigated the impact of technological innovations on environmental degradation for selected countries from 1991 to 2018. Due to the presence of cross-sectional dependence, we have applied the second generational panel unit root test and after the confirmation of long-run cointegration, the panel autoregressive distributed lag models based on the mean group, pool mean group, and augmented mean group techniques have been used to calculate the long and short-run estimates. The results indicate that technological innovations have a negative and significant impact on the ecological footprint in the long run but are insignificant in the short run for both South and Southeast Asian countries. The study also confirms the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in both regions. Based on findings, it is recommended for countries in these regions to pay serious attention to the adoption of cleaner technology and to increase investment in research and development activities geared at enhancing renewable energy consumption for the sustainability of the environment.