Fifty shades of sustainable development: a global study

This paper constitutes the first holistic attempt to analyze the evolution of sustainable development (SD) on a worldwide scale for the period following the launch of Agenda 2030. Hence, we aim to (1) explore the drivers of SD on a global level, (2) investigate the existence of SD gaps over time between OECD countries and the rest of the world, and (3) determine if SD has improved globally as a result of national policy implementation. To that end, we created a new SD index for the 193 UN member states from 2015 to 2020. Dynamic panel estimations with a two-step system generalized method of moments for linear and nonlinear conditions indicated that human development, age structure, health expenditure, financial development, growth of income, and natural resource rent are the main determinants of SD. Using the Kitagawa–Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, we found a persistent SD gap between OECD and non-OECD countries that increased substantially in 2017. Panel event studies with Goodman-Bacon decomposition and several difference-in-differences methods with staggered adoption and heterogeneous treatment effects, outlined no post-treatment effect of the first voluntary national review at the UN, indicating the absence of substantial improvement in SD on the global level.