Inquiring asymmetric effects of oil prices, money supply, and domestic debt on consumer prices: an empirical evidence from Pakistan.

Oil prices (OP) may play a significant role in determining inflation in any oil-importing economy and could have an asymmetrical effect as well. Thus, this paper aims to explore the asymmetric influence of OP, broad money supply (BMS), and domestic debt (DD) on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the oil-importing economy of Pakistan using the nonlinear autoregressive distributive lag (NARDL) methodology on an annual sample from 1980 to 2021. The long-run results show that increasing OP and BMS have a positive effect on CPI. Similarly, decreasing OP and BMS have a positive effect on CPI. So, increasing OP and BMS is raising price levels, and decreasing OP and BMS is reducing price levels. OP has a positive and symmetrical effect on CPI. However, the BMS has a positive but asymmetrical effect on CPI. Furthermore, the effect of decreasing BMS is found greater than increasing BMS. Moreover, the effect of DD on CPI is also found asymmetrical. The increasing DD has a positive effect, and decreasing DD has a negative effect on CPI. The most of short-run results follow the long-run results. However, energy usage shows a negative effect on CPI in the short run, which is insignificant in the long-run results. This study recommends controlling the money supply and oil prices to reduce consumer prices.

Environmental sustainability through aggregate demand and knowledge economy interaction-a case of very high-HDI countries.

The magnitude of the economic activities is immense in very high-Human Development Index (HDI) countries, leading to environmental degradation, a crucial problem. This study is aimed at testing aggregate demand's role in the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) perspective and explores the role of four pillars of the knowledge economy, viz., technology, innovations, education, and institutions, as proposed by World Bank, in maintaining sustainable development of environmental quality in these countries. The analysis covers the period ranging from 1995 to 2022. The departure of normality of the variables provides a solid base for panel quantile regression (PQR). Unlike ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, which estimates the conditional mean of the dependent variable, PQR estimates the conditional quantiles. The estimated results using PQR confirm both U and inverted U-shaped aggregate demand-based EKC. In fact, these knowledge pillars in the model determine the shape of EKC. Results also reveal that two knowledge pillars, i.e., technology and innovations, are responsible for significantly reducing carbon emissions. In comparison, education and institutions are responsible for expanding carbon emissions. As a moderator, all knowledge pillars except institutions are shifting the EKC downward. The key lessons from these findings are that technology and innovation can reduce carbon emissions, while education and institutions may have a mixed impact. The relationship between knowledge pillars and emissions may be moderated by other factors, underscoring the need for further research. Moreover, urbanization, energy intensity, financial development, and trade openness significantly contribute to environmental deterioration.