Investigating the nexus between education expenditure, female employers, renewable energy consumption and CO2 emission: Evidence from China

Abstract The present study empirically investigates the nexus between education expenditure, female employer, consumption of renewable energy, and CO2 emission in China. A total of 25 years of data spanning from 1991 to 2015 is used in the study. The World Bank data has been used as the source of data. Several econometric techniques, such as ADF, P.P, Bound test, ARDL, and fully FMOLS, have been applied to draw empirical inferences. The bound test reveals a long-run relationship between the considered variables. The estimations of the ARDL model show that education expenditure, female employers, and renewable energy consumption have a negative connection with CO2 emission. The study's findings indicate that increasing education expenditure, an increasing number of female employers, and increasing renewable energy consumption as a percentage of total energy use will help reduce CO2 emission in both the long term and short term in China. The fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) has been applied to test the robust impact of independent variables towards the dependent variable used in the study. And lastly, this study provides important policy recommendations that help in reducing CO2 emissions in the environment.