Does the Interaction between ICT Diffusion and Economic Growth Reduce CO2 Emissions? An ARDL Approach

In recent years, information and communication technology (ICT) and its impact on economic growth and CO2 emission has become a hot topic of debate; however, little research has been conducted regarding the impact of the interaction between ICT and economic growth on CO2 emission. The study tries to evaluate empirically the impact of ICT and economic growth on CO2 emissions of Tunisia and Morocco for the period 1980-2018, based on the Auto-Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) analysis. Findings demonstrate that ICT and economic growth affect positively and significantly the CO2 emissions in the short and long term in both Tunisia and Morocco; however, the direct and positive effect of economic growth on CO2 emissions can be ameliorated by introducing the interaction between ICT and economic growth. The Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test reveals that bi-directional causality is running between economic growth and CO2 emissions in both countries. On the other hand, our obtained results express that there is a unidirectional causality running from ICT to CO2 emissions in both countries. So, the promotion of ICT can be considered one of the important strategies introduced to mitigate CO2 emissions. Then, introducing green ICT projects in various sectors of an economy is a better choice for policy makers to decrease the CO2 emissions.