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This study aims to examine the relationship between pollution and life expectancy in oil producing communities, where there is a dearth of empirical evidence on how knowledge and coping strategy, agriculture and foreign capital inflows mediate the relationship between pollution and life expectancy.

The study employed a cross sectional survey design to analyze the roles of knowledge and coping strategy, agriculture and foreign capital inflows in the relationship between pollution and life expectancy in Benekuku and Okpai oil producing communities in the Niger Delta. The study employed the modern structural equation modeling (SEM) estimator.

Estimates show the mediating effect of agriculture on air pollution-longevity (coeff. = 0.398; t-value = 4.425; p < 0.05) and (coeff. = −0.120; t-value = −3.862; p < 0.05) mediating effect of foreign capital. The result revealed that agriculture and foreign capital inflows are significant mediators in pollution-life expectancy relations, affirming the Niger Delta as a pollution haven. However, knowledge and coping strategy with estimate of (coeff. = 0.233; t-value = 6.150; p < 0.05) spurs life expectancy.

The study suggests knowledge of hazard identification and reporting and awareness of coping strategy as the panacea to poor life expectancy rate in these local oil producing communities.

The study departs from existing works by estimating the mediating roles of agriculture and foreign capital inflow in air pollution-Life expectancy by controlling for knowledge and coping strategy using the structural equation model with ethical approval from Health Ethics Research Committee.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0734

The purpose of this study is to examine the interactive role of human capital development (HCD) in foreign aid-growth relations in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa countries from 1985–2019.

The study used panel data that cut across all countries in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa collected from The World Bank’s Development Indicators. The data were analysed using Bai and Ng panel unit root idiosyncratic cross-sectional tests and the system generalised method of moments (SGMM).

The study found that foreign aid and HCD have negative impacts on economic growth. Fortunately, the interaction of human capital with foreign aid reduces the extent to which foreign aid impedes economic growth. The presumption is that South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa economies had not reaped the potential growth effect of foreign aid inflows due to high illiteracy rates and weak social capacities. The peculiarity of these regions hinders the absorptive capacity to transform positive externality associated with foreign aid into sizeable economic prosperity.

It is imperative for South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa countries to not depend on foreign aid; instead, the strategic action by policymakers should be to developing sustainable social capacities with HCD as the centre-piece.

The highpoint of this study is its inter-regional approach and the interplay between human capital and foreign aid using the second generation panel unit root estimator and the SGMM approaches.

This study evaluates the impact of carbon emission on life expectancy in Nigeria. The study also investigates the mediating role of agricultural output and foreign direct investment as suggested by the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and the pollution haven hypothesis (PHH), respectively.

The hypotheses and theories were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). Primary data were collected using cross-sectional survey design. Questionnaires were distributed and responses were used to measure the latent variables of the study. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to evaluate the measurement models, while path analysis was used to estimate the coefficients of the structural equations.

Carbon emission was found to have a negative and significant impact on life expectancy. This impact constituted both direct and indirect effects that were mediated by both foreign direct investment and agricultural output. Carbon emission and agricultural output were found to play significant roles that lead to a further negative- and significant-mediated relationship of carbon emission with life expectancy.

Unlike many previous studies on air pollution, this study investigates carbon emission in particular as well as the mediating role of agricultural output and foreign direct investment in the carbon emission and life expectancy relationship. The use of SEM also fills a methodological gap as it computes coefficients of mediation and controls for measurement bias and multicollinearity.

The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between air pollution and life expectancy considering the roles of institutional quality, agricultural output, foreign direct investment (FDI) and other socio-economic variables in Nigeria from 1981Q1 to 2019Q4.

The study employed spliced quarterly data from annual series collected from the World Bank development indicators and Central Bank of Nigeria. The dynamic multivariate models were analysed using the vector error correction mechanism (VECM), variance decomposition and Granger causality techniques.

The VECM result indicated a statistically significant adverse effect of air pollution on life expectancy. However, institutional quality, gross domestic product per capita, agricultural output, government social expenditure and school enrolment rate ameliorate the adverse health effects of air pollution, while FDI had mixed effects on life expectancy at different significance levels and at varying lag lengths. The Granger causality result revealed a uni-directional causality from air pollution to life expectancy; bidirectional causal chain between agriculture, FDI, government social expenditure and life expectancy, while a uni-directional causal linkage run from life expectancy to income per head and from school enrolment to life expectancy respectively. However, there is no evidence of causation between institutional quality and life expectancy due to weak institutional quality, but foreign direct invest causes carbon emission in a uni-directional manner in line with pollution haven hypothesis.

The study's modelling is limited by not considering the resource curse variable in the model due to paucity of data. Nigeria is the biggest crude oil exporter in Africa and ranks 13th globally with daily output of about 2.4 m barrels. Thus, the negation of resource curse in air pollution–life expectancy nexus de-emphasises the effectiveness of rich resources on health and environment. Future studies could address this limitation by incorporating resource curse in environmental-health models for Nigeria.

It is imperative for the country to adopt stringent anti-air pollution strategies that would establish a balance between FDI attraction and agricultural expansion to the benefits of her citizens' longevity. Also, education should be considered as a strategic action to enhance life expectancy through expansion in the provision, accessibility and affordability to improved school enrolment rate. The choice of quarterly time series over annual data helped to establish the current relationship between air pollution and life expectancy using efficient estimators.

The study contributes to literature by disaggregating yearly series into quarterly series, which has implications for the efficiency of the estimates, unlike earlier studies which ignored this fundamental process. The result of this study produced reliable policy direction for improvement in life expectancy in an emerging economy since quarterly estimates are more robust and reliable for forecasting than its yearly counterpart. The outcome of the study extended the original tenets of the Grossman's health stock theory using the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and pollution haven hypotheses (PHH).