Three essays in ecological economics: Economic growth, environmental regulations and technological innovation in EU countries

Various environmental policies are put into place by nations in accordance with sustainable development goals. However, at this moment, because of the acceleration of global warming, there are disagreements over whether the measures taken to stop environmental pollution are successful. Consequently, it is crucial to investigate the causes of environmental contamination and adopt preventative measures to avoid them. In this study, the effects of economic expansion, environmental regulations, and technology advancement on environmental pollution are evaluated using three different models and three independent sections. As a starting point, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) was observed to examine how economic expansion affects environmental contamination. The second-generation panel data methodologies are used for 17 EU nations (Germany, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Bulgaria, Ireland, Czechia, Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Greece, and Spain) for the years of 1993–2018. Accordingly, it has been found that while environmental pollution rises in the early phases of economic growth, it falls off in the latter stages. The EKC's reliability has been established, according to this result. Second, using second-generation panel data approaches and the years 1995–2018, it was determined and studied how environmental rules affect pollution and how they interact with trade openness for the same nation group. The findings show that trade openness increases pollution, environmental regulations decrease it, and trade openness's tendency to do so is reversed as environmental regulations increase. In terms of the aforementioned country group, the effects of technical innovation on environmental pollution as well as the interaction effect of technological and financial growth were examined over the time period 1995–2018. Accordingly, it can be observed that technical innovation has not yet reached a sufficient level to effectively mitigate environmental pollution. It is evident that the environmental impact of technological advancements is closely intertwined with financial development.