Regional and spatial impacts of external and internal conflicts on ecological footprint: the case of Middle East and Africa.

The economic and environmental structures of countries are greatly impacted by domestic and foreign conflicts. To promote sustainable development, it is crucial to understand the spatial impact of these conflicts on the ecological footprint of a region. With a focus on Middle Eastern and African countries, this paper investigates the impact of such conflicts on their environments, taking into consideration the unique spatial features of their ecological footprints. Using a spatial econometric model, the study assesses the contributions of ecological footprint determinants, particularly internal and external conflict indicators, across 46 Middle Eastern and African countries from 2001 to 2019. The results indicate that internal conflict can lead to increased pressure on natural resources and ecological systems in neighboring countries, while energy use and economic growth impose a significant ecological burden both domestically and abroad. While urbanization and resource rents were found to reduce the ecological footprint, trade openness was found to be nonsignificant. Conflicts such as war, foreign pressure, civil war, and civil disorder were found to have a significant negative impact on the environment, suggesting that reducing these conflicts would improve environmental circumstances. The findings highlight the need for conflict resolution measures to achieve a sustainable environment in the Middle Eastern and African regions and have implications for other countries facing similar issues.

Comprehensive Environmental Assessment Index of Ecological Footprint.

This paper aims to contribute to the growing body of research literature on assessing environmental efficiency by introducing a new key performance indicator (KPIs) in more complete and dependable aspects of ecological footprint indices. For this purpose, the DEA model considering three inputs (energy consumption, labor force, and capital stock), one desirable output (GDP), and different undesirable outputs (CO2 emissions, ecological footprint indicators) are applied to 27 OECD countries from 2000 to 2017. According to the results, Norway, Luxemburg, and United Kingdom are the most environmentally efficient countries in terms of environmental efficiency and ecological footprint efficiency. On the other hand, the lowest environmental and ecological footprint efficiencies were in countries like Lithuania, Slovak, Czech, Estonia, and the USA. In addition, these nations fare poorly regarding their carbon footprint and farmland efficiency. In further detail, Lithuania, South Korea, Portugal, and Spain have a critical status in fishing ground efficiency, while the forest area efficiency is very acute in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Czech.

Regional Effects of Maternal Mortality Determinants in Africa and the Middle East: How About Political Risks of Conflicts?

Background: As per the United Nations Women data, the maternal mortality rate in war-affected countries is critical and more than 800 million people live in war-affected countries (ICRC). External and internal conflicts such as foreign pressure, war and cross-border, civil disorder, terrorism, and civil war, are characteristics of Middle Eastern and African countries. Therefore considering the rapid increment of political risks and internal and external conflicts in Africa and the Middle East during the last decade, and considering warfare as a key contributor to maternal mortality; This paper seeks to evaluate the factors that have caused significant rates of maternal mortality in Middle Eastern and African countries by emphasizing the contributions of a number of political risk aspects as Civil Disorder Index, Terrorism Index, Civil War Index, Foreign Pressures Index, Cross-Border Conflict Index, War Index along with other socio-economic factors. Method: Data were collected from forty-six countries during 2011-2016 to explore the regional contributions of political risk aspects to the maternal mortality rate through spatial approaches. Results: It was found that GDP per capita, energy intensity, and urbanization strongly impacted maternal mortality. Also, it was observed that natural resource rents and economic growth significantly influenced the reduction of mortality by expanding healthcare services. The urban expansion was found to have elevated maternal mortality. A majority of external and internal conflicts reduced the orientation of production toward healthcare services and thus raised maternal mortality. On the other hand, war and cross-border were found to pose opposite impacts. Conclusion: The findings revealed that political risks arising from terrorism, foreign pressure, and war in the adjacent countries would elevate the rate of mortality in the original country. This implies the spillover impacts of regional conflicts on maternal mortality elevation at the regional scale.JEL Classification Codes: C23; I10; I18; N37.

Exploring the influence of economic freedom index on fishing grounds footprint in environmental Kuznets curve framework through spatial econometrics technique: evidence from Asia-Pacific countries.

Environmental challenges are as vast as the universe, allowing for numerous studies on their various dimensions. Using 17 data sets from Asia-Pacific countries between 2000 and 2017, this study attempted to investigate the economic factors influencing the ecological footprint of the fishing sector. The primary contribution of this study is to examine the effects of nine economic freedom indicators, as well as other control variables, on the status of fishery resources due to environmental pressure. The findings confirm the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the fishing grounds footprint, indicating that GDP per capita growth has a positive and significant effect, even though its squared form coefficient is negative. Other control variables, including natural resource rents, urbanization, and energy intensity, do not significantly affect the fishing footprint. The different components of economic freedom show different effects, while their cumulative effects in the form of the total economic freedom index positively affect the footprint of fishing and lead to increased extraction from fishing resources. The results show that the government integrity, tax burden, business freedom, and monetary freedom indices increase the fishing footprint. In contrast, indices of trade freedom and investment freedom, by highlighting the adverse effects of fishing on the environment, help countries reduce pressure on their aquatic resources. The findings of this study highlight the importance of examining how various dimensions of economic freedom affect the ability to manage fishery resources effectively.