Abstract
The association between economic complexity (a sophisticated economic structure) and ecological footprint has been investigated in developed countries but has less attention in developing nations. Therefore, this study aims to explore the influence of economic complexity, economic growth, and urbanization on demand for ecological assets in Vietnam from 1975 to 2016. By adopting the quantile regression, the empirical results indicate that an increase in economic growth leads to a decrease in ecological footprint, while an enhanced urbanization policy may hurt the national ecosystem. A new finding of this study is that economic complexity is only really beneficial for ecological footprints after the 67% threshold. Based on empirical results, some practical policy implications are suggested.
