The nexus of green energy, financial inclusion, government defense financing, and socioeconomic sustainability across diverse income-level groups: a global indication

The key objective of this research work is to examine the influence of green energy (GRE), financial inclusion (FIN), and government defense financing (GDF) on socioeconomic sustainability (SES) by taking a sample of 121 nations within the time range of 2003–2022. The sample is additionally categorized into three diverse income-level groups, including 44 high-income, 33 upper-middle-income, and 44 low- and lower-middle-income nations for better contribution and evaluation. We employed a two-step system GMM as prime and Driscroll–Kraay (D–K) fixed effect regression and 2SLS as robust techniques, respectively. The findings unveiled that GRE and FIN are significantly beneficial for socioeconomic sustainability in all groups; however, these factors have a lesser impact in high-income countries. Furthermore, GDF has a negative but a non-significant linkage with SES at the global, low-, and lower-middle-income levels. Simultaneously, GDF significantly improves SES in high-income countries while has a non-significantly positive influence on SES in upper-middle-income countries. On the other hand, security motives (SMT) significantly harm SES in all categories except the high-income nations group. Moreover, institutional quality (INQ) significantly harms SES worldwide and in high-income countries. This research study also yields some suitable policy measures to achieve SDGs.