Investigation of the ecological footprint's driving factors: What we learn from the experience of emerging economies

This paper investigates the impact of energy consumption, urbanization and economic growth on emerging economies' ecological footprints over the period from 1971 to 2014. The study contributes to research on the effect of the interaction between economic growth and urbanization on the ecological footprint. For its empirical estimations, the study applies the Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (MG-CCE) estimator, which compares heterogeneity and dependence across countries. The results of the study show that urbanization increases the ecological footprint, but the moderating effects of economic growth and urbanization reduce the ecological footprint, reducing environmental degradation in Next-11 countries. Thus, the empirical estimation suggests that energy consumption has a positive and significant impact on the ecological footprint, so policymakers should accelerate the economic growth that increases urbanization to reduce environmental degradation.