Environmental role of technology, income, globalization, and political stability: Testing the LCC hypothesis for the GCC countries

The importance of non-economic factors for the environment is increasing day by day. ICT, globalization, and political stability (PS) are becoming more and more important in environmental policymaking. However, their impact on the environment has not yet been addressed in the literature for the GCC countries. Therefore, the study focuses on the analysis of the impact of mobile cellular subscriptions and internet usage, two different ICT indicators, as well as income, globalization, and PS on environmental quality (EQ). The study considers a total of six GCC countries from 2000 to 2019, applies the augmented mean group approach at both panel and country levels, and tests the validity of the load capacity curve (LCC) hypothesis. The results show that (i) ICT contributes to the development of EQ; (ii) globalization and PS reduce EQ; (iii) income has no significant impact; (iv) the LCC hypothesis is not valid for the GCC panel, while it is valid in Qatar; (v) the results vary at the country level with regard to the panel level. The study recommends that GCC countries should make more use of the positive aspects of ICT in addressing environmental issues and promoting green digitalization to develop EQ; and work to transform their high-income into an eco-friendly structure so that the progress of EQ can be supported by the income; benefit from globalization to import green products and technologies that can help increase EQ; and use the PS to make eco-friendly decisions.