Visiting Human Capital-Foreign Direct Investment-Environment Association for Attaining Environmental Sustainability: Fresh Insight from Pakistan

The current study explores the association of human capital, foreign direct investment, economic growth and population with the environment in Pakistan. Our study adopted the time series econometric estimation methodology autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) over 1980-2019. Interestingly our study results show that increase in human capital will clean the environment in both the short and long run. The study also validates the pollution haven hypothesis by proving the positive link of foreign direct investment with the ecological footprint. The findings also corroborate the existence of the long-run linkage of economic growth with the environment. The study suggests that policymakers and government officials should develop and promote the education sector that eventually mitigates environmental degradation.