Another Look into the Relationship between Economic Growth, Carbon Emissions, Agriculture and Urbanization in Thailand: A Frequency Domain Analysis

• Main Authors: Mário Nuno Mata, Seun Damola Oladipupo, Rjoub Husam, Joaquim António Ferrão, Mehmet Altuntaş, Jéssica Nunes Martins, Dervis Kirikkaleli, Rui Miguel Dantas, António Morão Lourenço
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-08-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: agriculture; urbanization; economic growth; CO₂ emissions; energy use; Thailand
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/16/5132

This empirical study assesses the effect of CO₂ emissions, urbanization, energy consumption, and agriculture on Thailand’s economic growth using a dataset between 1970 and 2018. The ARDL and the frequency domain causality (FDC) approaches were applied to assess these interconnections. The outcome of the bounds test suggested a long-term association among the variables of investigation. The ARDL outcomes reveal that urbanization, agriculture, energy consumption, and CO₂ emissions positively trigger Thailand’s economic growth. Additionally, the frequency domain causality test was used to detect a causal connection between the series. The main benefit of this technique is that it can detect a causal connection between series at different frequencies. To the understanding of the authors, this is the first study in the case of Thailand that will apply the FDC approach to capture the causal linkage between GDP and the regressors. The outcomes of the causality test suggested that CO₂ emissions, urbanization, energy consumption, and agriculture can predict Thailand’s economic growth in the long term. These outcomes have far-reaching implications for economic performance and Thailand’s macroeconomic indicators.