ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Hum. Dyn.
Sec. Population, Environment and Development
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fhumd.2025.1602927
The impact of international trade, foreign direct investment, and demographic structure on the environmental quality of human well-being: Evidence from Bhutan
Provisionally accepted
- 1Yangtze Normal University, Fuling District, China
- 2Tibet University, Lhasa, Tibet, China
- 3University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Based on the environmental quality data pertaining to human well-being in Bhutan from 2002 to 2022, the ARDL-ECM model was employed to examine the long-term equilibrium and short-term dynamic relationships between international trade, foreign direct investment, and demographic structure with Bhutan's per capita ecological footprint. Additionally, the Granger causality test was utilized to further investigate these relationships. The results showed that: During the study period, the environmental quality of human well-being in Bhutan was deteriorating continuously;The increase of international trade can increase the per capita ecological footprint of Bhutan, which leads to the decline of Bhutan's environmental quality, and it is also the Granger cause of the change in Bhutan's per capita ecological footprint. Foreign direct investment and demographic structure move in the opposite direction of Bhutan's per capita ecological footprint. This serves as a point of reference for policymakers when formulating pertinent strategies, and offers a theoretical foundation and practical guidance for other nations in their pursuit of sustainable development pathways.
Keywords: Bhutan, international trade, Foreign direct investment, Demographic structure, ecological footprint
Received: 30 Mar 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ye, Wang, Chen and Yu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yong Yu, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, 50603, Malaysia
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.