The impact of good governance on environmental pollution in South West Asian Countries

Abstract

Over the past few decades, good governance has become an important issue in public administration. One key reason behind this reality is the paramount role of government in promoting sustainable development and protecting the environment. Therefore, evaluating the impact of good governance on the quality of the environment could be taken into consideration by both economic researchers and policy makers. This paper deals with the impact of good governance on the environmental pollution in Iran and its competitors of 2025 vision document (i.e., South West Asian Countries, SWAC) over the period of 2002-2015. The results maintain that government effectiveness, quality of law, rule of law and control of corruption (as representative indicators of good governance) have significant effect on pollution. The degree of the economic openness and economic growth do indicate negative and significant relation with environment pollution as well. Therefore, improving good governance indices in selected countries including Iran could potentially reduce the pollution over there.