Leveraging Institutions for Sustainable Development: A Case Study of South Korea

This study analyzes the impacts of institutional quality on CO2 emissions for Korea, using an autoregressive distributed lags model. We investigate the long-run relationship between CO2 emissions, economic growth, energy consumption, renewable energy consumption, and various dimensions of institutional quality. Our findings suggest that improvement of selected dimensions of institutional quality, including control of corruption, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and voice and accountability, can significantly contribute to CO2 emissions reduction. The results also support the validity of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) and Korea has reached the turning point of CO2 emissions decline accompanied by economic growth. The analysis also indicates that renewable energy consumption has a positive impact on reducing CO2 emissions. These results underscore the critical role of effective institutions in fostering sustainable economic development and environmental protection in South Korea. JEL Classification: Q51, Q56, E02, O44