Interactions among technological innovation, foreign direct investment, and agriculture: A symmetric and asymmetric study of inclusive sustainable development

This study examines the Indian inclusive sustainable development. India ranked third in global carbon emissions amidst its economic performance. This tells more about one-sided sustainable development policy of the country. With this trend of development anchored only on Indian economic activities, we consider it important to research the economy with instruments (such as technological innovation, foreign direct investment (FDI), and agriculture) that are unique to the country. India's data from 1980 to 2019 are applied to this study with two models for testing both economic and environmental developments. We utilized two scientific methods (non-linear autoregressive distributive lag (NARDL) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS)) to demonstrate both symmetric and asymmetric technical analyses. Findings from NARDL show that technological innovation and FDI are mitigating carbon emissions, while economic growth and agriculture are increasing carbon emissions thereby impacting negatively the environment. Also, the result from the economic model confirms that all variables are impacting favorably on economic development except carbon emission. The findings from DOLS support the findings from NARDL. The result confirmed that India is yet to attain inclusive sustainable development, however, it is evident that with the right policy framed on tech innovation and FDI, the country could attain balanced sustainable development. Having seen, the dual capacity of both technological innovation and FDI toward strengthening both the economy and environment, it is worthy to consider these instruments as among the sustainable policies. © The Author(s) 2022.