PUBLICATIONS

RESEARCH PROPOSAL Title: Innovation-Mediated Drivers of Bangladesh’s Load Capacity Factor (1990–2023): Evidence from a Parsimonious Fourier-NARDL Framework ________________________________________ 1. Background and Rationale Bangladesh’s rapid economic growth, expanding energy demand, and deepening global integration have intensified environmental pressures while simultaneously creating opportunities for green transformation. Conventional environmental indicators—particularly carbon dioxide emissions—capture only partial aspects of ecological degradation and fail to incorporate regenerative ecological capacity. The Load Capacity Factor (LCF), defined as the ratio of biocapacity to ecological footprint, provides a more comprehensive sustainability metric by jointly measuring ecological pressure and resilience. Recent empirical work has begun applying LCF to Bangladesh using globalization-related drivers; however, the critical mediating role of domestic innovation systems—especially green technological creation and R&D investment—remains unexplored. This study argues that the environmental effectiveness of renewable energy expansion, foreign direct investment, and trade openness is conditional upon the strength of local green innovation capacity. Without innovation, globalization may intensify ecological stress; with innovation, it may enhance sustainability. To test this mechanism, the research applies a parsimonious nonlinear Fourier-NARDL model capable of capturing: • asymmetric responses to positive and negative shocks • structural breaks from policy reforms and global shocks • long-run and short-run sustainability dynamics This integrated design delivers clear theoretical novelty, methodological rigor, and policy relevance aligned with Q1 journal expectations. ________________________________________ 2. Research Objectives General Objective To examine how globalization and energy transition influence Bangladesh’s ecological sustainability conditional on green innovation capacity. Specific Objectives 1. Estimate long-run and short-run effects of renewable energy, FDI, trade openness, and green innovation on LCF. 2. Identify asymmetric impacts of positive versus negative shocks in core drivers. 3. Detect structural breaks in Bangladesh’s sustainability trajectory. 4. Test causal relationships among innovation, globalization, energy use, and ecological sustainability. 5. Provide policy-relevant sustainability scenarios based on innovation-mediated pathways. ________________________________________ 3. Research Questions Primary Question How do renewable energy, FDI, trade openness, and green innovation jointly shape Bangladesh’s ecological sustainability measured by LCF under nonlinear and structural-break dynamics? Supporting Questions • Does green innovation moderate the environmental effects of FDI and trade? • Are sustainability responses asymmetric to positive and negative shocks? • Do structural policy periods alter long-run ecological relationships? • Which policy lever yields the greatest sustainability improvement? ________________________________________ 4. Hypotheses H1: Renewable energy consumption increases LCF in the long run. H2: FDI inflows exhibit asymmetric environmental effects—positive shocks reduce LCF (pollution-haven mechanism), while negative shocks do not symmetrically improve it. H3: Trade openness has nonlinear sustainability effects that depend on the level of green innovation. H4: Green innovation significantly enhances long-run ecological resilience and offsets negative globalization effects. H5: Structural breaks linked to major policy transitions significantly change the long-run innovation–LCF relationship. ________________________________________ 5. Conceptual Framework Dependent Variable • Load Capacity Factor (LCF) Robustness DV • Inverted LCF Core Independent Variables (Parsimonious Model) • Renewable energy consumption • Foreign direct investment (% GDP) • Trade openness (% GDP) • Green innovation (environmental patents) Essential Control Variables • GDP per capita • Total energy use Extended Robustness Variables • R&D expenditure (% GDP) • Economic complexity • Urbanization (alternative demographic control) 6. Data Description Coverage • Annual data: 1990–2023 (maximum availability) Primary Sources • Global Footprint Network — LCF • World Bank WDI — GDP, energy, trade, FDI, population, R&D • IEA / BP — renewable energy and total energy use • WIPO / OECD — environmental patents • MIT Atlas — economic complexity • Bangladesh national statistics — validation and robustness 7. Variable Construction • Log transformation for level variables to obtain elasticities. • Percentage indicators retained in natural form. • Inverted-LCF constructed as reciprocal/normalized sustainability inefficiency index. • Positive and negative partial sums generated for nonlinear NARDL estimation. 8. Empirical Methodology Step 1 — Exploratory analysis and visualization. Step 2 — Structural break detection • Bai-Perron multiple break test • Fourier approximation for smooth structural shifts Step 3 — Stationarity testing with breaks • Fourier ADF • Zivot-Andrews Step 4 — Cointegration and nonlinear dynamics • Parsimonious Fourier-NARDL estimation • Long-run, short-run, and asymmetric elasticities Step 5 — Directional causality • Toda-Yamamoto or frequency-domain causality tests Step 6 — Conditional causal robustness • Synthetic control or intervention analysis only if a sharp policy shock is empirically identifiable 9. Robustness Strategy • Alternative dependent variables (CO₂ emissions, ecological footprint). • Alternative estimators (ARDL, FMOLS, DOLS, VECM). • Innovation proxy substitution (R&D replacing patents). • Secondary model including economic complexity. • Subsample estimation around structural breaks. • Bootstrap inference and endogeneity correction where required. 10. Expected Contributions This study advances the sustainability literature by: 1. Providing the first innovation-mediated LCF analysis for Bangladesh. 2. Demonstrating that globalization’s environmental impact is conditional on domestic green innovation capacity. 3. Applying a parsimonious Fourier-NARDL framework suited to small-sample macro time series. 4. Delivering policy-relevant sustainability scenarios for renewable energy, green FDI, and innovation investment. These contributions collectively establish clear Q1-level novelty. 11. Policy Implications Findings will inform: • Renewable energy transition strategy • Regulation and targeting of environmentally sustainable FDI • Innovation-driven green industrial policy • Trade policy alignment with ecological resilience • Long-term SDG-consistent sustainability planning 12. Proposed Paper Structure 13. Introduction 14. Literature Review and Innovation-Based Research Gap 15. Data and Variable Construction 16. Methodology (Parsimonious Fourier-NARDL) 17. Empirical Results 18. Robustness and Extensions 19. Policy Discussion 20. Conclusion 13. Target Q1 Journals (Priority Order) 14. Energy Economics 15. Energy Policy 16. Journal of Cleaner Production 17. Ecological Economics 18. Journal of Environmental Management / Sustainable Production and Consumption 14. Concluding Statement This revised proposal delivers a methodologically rigorous, theoretically novel, and policy-relevant framework for analyzing Bangladesh’s ecological sustainability through innovation-mediated globalization dynamics. By combining a parsimonious nonlinear Fourier-NARDL approach with a holistic sustainability indicator (LCF), the study provides a credible pathway toward Q1 journal publication.

Research examining the relationship between ethnicity and income inequality in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region. Data collection and analysis are currently in progress.