Sustaining Marine Minerals Toward Sustainable Blue Economy by Promoting the Inflows of Green FDI: New Insights From a Global Database

The literature has still remained silent on the importance of green foreign direct investments (GFDI) in promoting a sustainable marine economy. Hence, we empirically examine the influence of GFDI on sustaining marine minerals by applying multiple econometric methods, including a panel‐corrected standard error modeling (PCSE), a feasible generalized least squares model (FGLS), and an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. Six different variables are utilized to assess the sustainability of blue economies in European regions. These indicators include the increase in value at factor costs related to crude natural gas and petroleum extraction, support operations for natural gas and petroleum extraction, gravel and sand pit operation, kaolin and clay extractive operations, salt extraction, and other extractive operations support activities. Considering the linear relationship, our estimates indicate that GFDI does not improve activities supporting natural gas and petroleum exploitation. Therefore, we consider the nonlinear relationship among the variables. The findings indicate that once GFDI attains a specific threshold, its influence on the operations of crude petroleum extraction, salt extraction, and the functioning of aggregate and sand quarries or the extractive operations of kaolin and clays appears to diverge. Our paper underscores the significance of GFDI and policy suggestions to promote sustainable marine minerals.