This study explores the symmetric and asymmetric effects of the shadow economy on clean energy and air pollution of South Asian countries over the period 1991-2019. The short-run ARDL findings for the clean energy model suggest that shadow economy increases clean energy consumption in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, whereas this effect is negative for India and insignificant for other countries. The long-run results indicate the adverse impact only for India and the effects of tax revenue on clean energy are positively significant in Sri Lanka while negatively signiicant in Nepal and Bangladesh. Institutional quality significantly increases clean energy in Pakistan, India, and Nepal. However, in the case of Pakistan and Nepal, institutional quality deteriorated the environmental quality. The results for the pollution model confer that shadow economy increases emissions in Pakistan, decreases in Bangladesh and Nepal, and has no effect in India and Sri Lanka. The nonlinear ARDL results reveal that the positive components of the shadow economy significantly increase clean energy consumption only in Pakistan; however, the negative components of the shadow economy are negatively significant in all countries except Sri Lanka and Nepal. However, the negative component of the informal sector of the economy reduces CO2 emissions in India and increases CO2 emissions in Bangladesh and Nepal. The results offer important policy implications for achieving clean energy and better environmental quality in South Asian countries.
Keywords: Clean energy; Informal sector; Institutional quality; Shadow economy.