Is public debt 'curse' or 'benediction' for environmental debt: A panel ARDL approach.

This paper studies the effect of public debt on environmental debt by considering the top ten highly indebted countries with annual periods from 1996 to 2022, exploring both the theoretical framework and empirical evidence. For the empirical investigation, the study employs the panel ARDL model, and the robustness of these results is confirmed from the FGLS model. The findings indicate that at the initial level of public debt, it is a "Curse" and at a higher level of public debt, it is a "Benediction" for environmental debt, with the turning point around 99 % of public debt to GDP.