Analysing the interplay between energy transition, resource consumption, deforestation, and environmental factors on agricultural productivity: Insights from APEC countries

The growing focus on regional and international environmental cooperation has helped further discussions about environmental sustainability. This study evaluates agricultural economic productivity and how it is affected by natural resource consumption, energy transition, deforestation, global trade integration and environmental degradation in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries. Our empirical findings from CS-ARDL, AMG and CCEMG help us reveal that environmental degradation, deforestation and natural resource abundance lower agricultural productivity, while energy transition and global trade integration improve agricultural productivity. Additionally, despite being highly integrated within global economic structure, APEC countries have not been able to boost agricultural productivity more than other regional blocks. We propose novel policy recommendations for APEC policymakers to improve environmental sustainability and agricultural productivity.