Does globalization matter for environmental sustainability? Empirical investigation for Turkey by Markov regime switching models

Many efforts have been made to theoretically explain and/or empirically investigate how globalization plays a role on environmental quality. However, as in theoretical explanations, empirical literature as well has not reached a consensus yet to enlighten possible effects in developing countries especially. On the one hand, Globalization is expected to contribute to decrease environmental degradation through the technique effect that underlines the role of obtaining clean technologies. On the other hand, this expectation may become reversed since globalization triggers economic activities through the scale effect and movements of dirty industries to developing countries. This paper focuses on how environmental sustainability reacts to globalization in Turkey. To this end, ecological footprint as a proxy for environmental sustainability and KOF globalization measurements are analyzed by using Markov regime switching models. Estimations indicate that growth in financial globalization, politic globalization, trade globalization, human capital, and capital stock reduce the ecological footprint growth of Turkey. Results reveal as well that interpersonal globalization growth diminishes ecological footprint growth. All three regime-switching models yield that growths of economic globalization and social globalization result in an increase in ecological footprint growth in Turkey.