Associating Economic Growth and Ecological Footprints through Human Capital and Biocapacity in South Asia

The ecological footprint (EF) has been used as an environmental indicator in most of the past research. Due to the complex linkages between economic growth and human development, EF has been inadequately understood in policy making. This research attempts to investigate the impacts of economic growth, human capital, biocapacity, and urbanization on the factors affecting the ecological footprint (EF) of five South Asian countries. To provide empirical evidence, this study utilizes the annual data from 1990 to 2022 for Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The findings confirm the positive contribution of GDP, human capital, biocapacity, and urbanization to EF. The causality analysis shows feedback association between GDP and EF, human capital and EF, and biocapacity and EF.