Original ArticlesDeterminants of Ecological Footprints: What is the role of globalization?

•Identification of robust determinants of the Ecological Footprints.•Empirical panel approach proposed to address globalization on ecological pressures.•Globalization affects Ecological footprints depending on the dimension addressed.•Social and economic globalization are important to consider to address ecological overshoot.

This paper empirically analyzes the ecological consequences of globalization, by employing the Ecological Footprint (EF) as a proxy for human ecological demands and the KOF index of Globalization. We develop an unbalanced data set covering 146 countries over the 1981-2009 period and are thus able to address the influence of countries' development over time. After empirically showing that globalization is an explanatory factor of ecological demands, an Extreme Bounds Analysis (EBA) identifies a robust set of impact factors. Subsequently, specific hypotheses on economic, political, social and overall globalization guide the empirical analysis. The findings suggest that economic globalization drives the EF of consumption, production, imports and exports. Social globalization correlates negatively with the EF of consumption and production, while increasing the EF of imports and exports. No effects are found for political globalization while overall globalization is positively correlated with EFs of imports and exports. The findings show that globalization may have different effects on EFs depending on the dimension (consumption, production, exports and imports) referred to.