Environmental degradation in ASEAN: assessing the criticality of natural resources abundance, economic growth and human capital

The ASEAN countries have enjoyed significant economic advancement over the years. The region is also blessed with lots of natural resources. However, natural resource abundance and economic growth could contribute to environmental deterioration, especially when the exploration and consumption of natural resource is not sustainable. This study has a maiden attempt to constitute the dynamic linkages between natural resources, human capital, economic growth, and ecological footprint (EF) in ASEAN. The Augmented Mean Group (an advanced econometric estimator) is adopted for empirical analysis over the period 1990 to 2016. The findings confirm the adverse effect of economic growth and natural resource on environmental quality. Human capital, though with a negative coefficient, is not efficient in mitigating environmental degradation in ASEAN. The country-wise results affirm that economic growth intensifies environmental degradation in all the countries, and the outcome was consistent with the dynamic OLS results. Further findings from the country-wise results suggest that natural resource is not harmful in Laos PDR and Thailand, but constitute environmental deterioration in the other countries. Finally, a feedback causality is discovered between natural resource and economic growth, and between human capital and economic growth. The limitations of the study and directions for future research have been highlighted along with relevant policy directions.

Automated summary

The ASEAN countries have seen significant economic progress over the years, but face challenges of unsustainable natural resource exploitation and environmental degradation. The study reveals that economic growth and natural resources have adverse effects on environmental quality, while human capital is not efficient in mitigating environmental degradation in the ASEAN region. There are variations in the impact of natural resources on the environment across different countries.