This study examines the impact of foreign aid on the institutional quality (IQ) of the OIC countries. Using the data of OIC countries for the three-year average period from 1991 to 2016, the system GMM finds that aid in general deteriorates the IQ for the aid recipient countries. However, quantile regression suggests that the negative impact of foreign aid on institutional quality (IQ) is relatively greater in the countries where the existing quality of institution is poor. The findings of the study suggest that improving the existing capacity is essential for reaping the optimum benefit of foreign aid on institutional development.

Countries with high levels of human development should be able to reduce the impact of natural disasters in terms of the total numbers of people killed and affected, and damage. In this study we investigate the impact of human development indicators such as income per capita and human capital (education level) on natural disaster fatalities (total deaths, total affected and total economic losses) in 79 selected countries. Using dynamic panel data analysis, we found that the level of economic development plays an important role in mitigating the impact of natural disasters such as droughts, earthquakes, extreme temperatures, floods, storms, volcanoes, landslides and wildfires. Other factors that are found to determine the number of natural disaster fatalities include population, population density, unemployment, investment, government consumption, openness, education and corruption. Using the dynamic panel data model, we found that education, investment, government consumption and openness display an inverse relationship, while population and population density have a direct positive relationship.

The present paper examines the mitigating effect of social capital on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for CO2 emissions using a panel data of 69 developed and developing countries. Adopting generalised method of moments (GMM) estimators, the paper finds evidence substantiating the presence of EKC. Moreover, the evidence suggests that the pollution costs of economic development tend to be lower in countries with higher social capital reservoir. Surprisingly, there is also evidence to indicate that the income threshold point beyond which CO2 emissions decline is higher in countries with higher social capital. These results are robust to addition of alternative controlled variables in the EKC specification. Thus, in addition to policy focus on investments in environmentally friendly technology and on the use of renewable energy, investments in social capital can also mitigate the pollution effects of economic progress.