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Does Financial Development Affect Environmental Degradation? Evidence for Brazil in the Period 1978-2020

Abstract

Several researches have focused on possible correlations between the development of the financial sector and economic growth. However, it is observed that these studies repeatedly ignore the environmental aspects of the issue, so the objective here is to fill this gap. To this end, this paper specifies ARDL models for the period 1978-2020, aiming to investigate the relationship between the development of the financial sector and environmental degradation in Brazil. A financial development index was constructed and then incorporated as an explanatory variable into the models. As a result, the development of the national financial sector worsens environmental quality in Brazil, increasing carbon dioxide emissions and reducing the country's natural capital stock. These results may be linked to the still low participation of green credit in the total credit allocated to the Brazilian economy, indicating a possible pro-carbon bias in the national financial sector.

Keywords:
environmental degradation; financial development index; ARDL model

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