Zokir Mamadiyarov

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
The study examines the nexus between environmental tax revenues, renewable energy adoption, transport research and development expenditure, and green growth across EU-27 countries from 2000 to 2024. The study addresses the critical gap in understanding how fiscal environmental instruments and technological innovation in transport sectors contribute to sustainable development outcomes. Using panel data analysis, the paper employs cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) and method of moments quantile regression (MMQR) models to analyze both short-run and long-run relationships while accounting for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity. Results reveal that environmental tax revenues positively influence green growth with a long-run elasticity of 0.358, indicating that a 1% increase in environmental taxes enhances adjusted net savings by 0.358%. Renewable energy adoption demonstrates a stronger positive effect with an elasticity of 0.531 in the long run, while transport R&D expenditure exhibits a coefficient of 0.289, suggesting significant contributions to sustainable outcomes. The MMQR analysis demonstrates heterogeneous effects across quantiles, with stronger impacts observed at higher green growth levels. Cross-sectional dependency tests confirm significant spatial spillover effects among EU member states. The findings provide empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of coordinated environmental fiscal policies and targeted innovation investments in transport sectors.

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Public finance management has become increasingly important for achieving Sustainable Development Goals in European Union countries, where fiscal constraints, debt sustainability pressures, and development-oriented investment needs coexist. This study examines the effects of public expenditure structure and fiscal discipline on Sustainable Development Goals performance in EU countries. The analysis uses annual panel data for EU countries over the period 2007–2023. The SDG performance index is constructed from SDG 8, SDG 9, SDG 10, SDG 11, SDG 16, and SDG 17 indicators, while the public expenditure structure index is constructed from indicators reflecting collective government spending, total government expenditure, and the government investment share. Difference GMM and System GMM estimations are applied, and Driscoll–Kraay and KRLS estimators are used for robustness checks. The results show that public expenditure structure has a negative and statistically significant effect on SDG performance, with coefficients of –0.284 in the Difference GMM model and –0.048 in the System GMM model. Fiscal discipline has a positive and statistically significant effect, with coefficients of 0.353 and 0.315, respectively. Robustness estimations also support the negative effect of public expenditure structure and the positive effect of fiscal discipline. However, the Driscoll–Kraay coefficient of fiscal discipline is statistically significant only at the 10% level. These findings suggest that fiscal discipline may support SDG performance through macro-fiscal stability, whereas the scale and composition of public expenditure alone may be insufficient unless they are aligned with SDG-oriented priorities.