Class Year

2026

Document Type

Student Research Paper

Date of Creation

Fall 2025

Department 1

Political Science

Abstract

This paper assesses whether membership in multilateral development banks (MDBs) is associated with lower ecological footprints. Drawing on country-year data from the 2025 Quality of Government (QoG) Basic Dataset and the Correlates of War (CoW) IGO Dataset, I analyze 1,714 observations from 1970–2008. Ecological footprint (global hectares per capita) is used as the dependent variable, while the central explanatory variable is the total number of MDB memberships annually. I utilize an OLS regression model controlling for logged GDP per capita, regime type, oil production value, urbanization, and economic globalization. Contrary to my hypothesis that MDB safeguards, norm diffusion, and pooling effects would reduce ecological footprint, my results indicate that higher MDB membership is associated with a statistically significant increase in ecological footprint. My results suggest that the ecologically burdensome preference for economic growth outweighs sustainability mechanisms within MDBs. I conclude by directing future research to disaggregate MDB breadth and shareholder structure, and to explore institutional factors that decouple economic growth from ecological footprint.

Comments

Written for POL 403: Capstone - International Relations

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