Exploring the individual and combined effect of natural resource rents, fin-tech, and renewable energy on sustainable development: New insights from SSA countries

Natural resource revenues significantly affect economic growth, but the effect creates positive and negative externalities. Positive externalities include new technologies, jobs, and new knowledge. On the other hand, negative externalities are pollution and climate change, which are bad for health and long-term growth. In the same pursuits, this study aims to investigate the effects of natural resource rents on Sub-Saharan African countries' sustainable development (SD) over the years 2000–2022. We particularly explore the individual and combined impact of resource rents, fintech, and renewable energy (RE) on the region's sustainability. The study employed moment quantile regression (MMQR) and bootstrapped quantile regression (BSQR) to quantify the relationship between the variables. The studies showed that both approaches have the same predictive power, with MMQR being more efficient regarding data usage. MMQR and BSQR were also found to be superior to traditional regression analysis. The study has found that the region possesses a resource curse, but the impact reduces from lower to higher quantiles of SD. RE and fintech have a negative individual impact on SD. However, the combined impact of rents with RE and Fintech is significantly positive, implying that well-managed resources through using Fintech and RE may create a resource boon for SSA. We recommend that policymakers invest in renewable energy ventures and the development of green financial technologies while extracting natural resources. These actions may help reduce the resource curse from NRR or even reverse it.