Do technological innovations have symmetric or asymmetric effects on environmental quality? Evidence from Pakistan

Technological innovation has played an important role in the socio-economic development of societies but, this development has come with some potential hazards to the environment. To do so, we use annual time series data over the period 1990-2018 to measure the symmetric and asymmetric effects of technology innovation on carbon emissions for Pakistan. In estimates of linear ARDL model, we found patent (trademark) has negative (positive) short-run symmetric effects on carbon emissions that have been changed into the long-run symmetric insignificant effects in Pakistan. However, when we employed a nonlinear ARDL model, we found the positive and negative shock of the patent has insignificant short-run asymmetric effects while the positive shock of the trademark has an insignificant and negative shock of the trademark has negative significant effects on carbon emissions in the short run. Our findings have been changed into the long-run asymmetric effects in Pakistan. Overall, the results show that asymmetric effects exist between technology innovation and carbon emissions in the long run. Therefore, this empirical research is applicable to policymakers in Pakistan as well as developing economies.