THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ECONOMIC FREEDOM AND ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN G-7 COUNTRIES: ANALYSIS WITH QRPD METHOD

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effect of economic freedom on ecological footprint in G-7 countries. To achieve this goal, we used annual data of G-7 countries during the period 1998-2018. In the analysis, quantile regression estimator for panel data (QRPD) with nonadditive fixed effects by Powell (2022) was applied as a newly developed method. In the study, ecological footprint was used as the dependent variable and Economic Freedom Index was used as the independent variable. As a result of the analyses performed, it was found that economic freedom increases the ecological footprint in G-7 countries for all three quantiles.