How facilitating is defense and health expenditures in achieving low carbon dioxide emissions: an application of quantile regression

The present study aims to connect two strands of literature that analyze the role of defense and health expenditures in environmental degradation. To this end, the study utilized a balanced panel data set comprising 27 European countries from 1995 to 2020. In addition, a novel and robust quantile-based regression method proposed by Machado and Silva (J Econom 213(1):145–173, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconom.2019.04.009, 2019) is used. The findings confirmed a U-shaped and N-shaped Environmental Kuznets Curve in the presence of government spending on health and defense across all the quantile levels with heterogeneous coefficients. Health expenditures mitigate while defense expenditures upsurge carbon dioxide emissions. Based on the revealed quantile dynamics, the study suggests some policy implications for curbing environmental degradation in the European region.