Asymmetric effects of eco-innovation and human capital development in realizing environmental sustainability in China: evidence from quantile ARDL framework

The present study investigates the dynamic and asymmetric impacts of eco-innovation human capital development on ambient pollution by validating Environment Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in China from 1988Q1 to 2018Q4. findings confirm non-normality structural breaks data. Thus, Quantile Autoregressive Distributive Lag (QARDL) model Granger Causality-in-Quantiles are applied address non-linearity breaks. long-run results exhibit that have a significant negative relationship with carbon emissions, mainly lower (0.05) medium (0.5) quantiles (0.50) higher (0.95) emissions quantile. Moreover, economic growth contributes across all quantiles. In contrast, square has association confirming validity EKC (0.40) Lastly, causality confirms two-way between eco-innovation, capital, one-way emissions. These offer valuable policy recommendations.