Impact of Higher Education and Globalization on Sustainable Development in the New EU Member States

Abstract

Sustainable development has been one of the critical issues on the world agenda since the 1970s given the depletion of natural resources, environmental degradation, inequalities, population growth, and urbanization. Therefore, uncovering the factors underlying sustainable development matters for the design of optimal policies. This study investigates the influence of higher education and globalization on sustainable development in the new EU members for the 2000–2019 duration with a panel data approach in view of the research gap in the empirical literature. The consequences of the analyses point out that higher education and globalization have significant influences on sustainable development in the short and long terms. However, the long-term influence of globalization over sustainable development is found to be relatively higher than the influence of higher education on sustainable development.

1. Introduction

The world has achieved significant economic growth, population growth, and urbanization since the Industrial Revolution, together with significant environmental degradation, climate change, and resource depletion. In this context, the 1972 UN Conference of Stockholm on the Human Environment drew attention to the mutual interaction between economic development and the environment [1] and the term ‘sustainable development’ was implicitly expressed. Then, the traditional description of sustainable development was given in the 1987 Brundtland Report as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [2]. The three dimensions of sustainable development are economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection, and these three factors should be harmonized for the achievement of sustainable development [3]. Finally, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development consisting of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) developed as a result of the joint efforts of the United Nations (UN) and countries was adopted by all UN members in 2015 [4]. The 17 SDGs aim to eradicate the hunger and poverty in the world, increase the access to the clean water and sanitation, clean energy, and quality education, decrease the income and gender inequalities, and improve sustainability, responsible consumption and production, and industrial, innovation, infrastructure, and economic growth [5].

The countries have exhibited different performances in the achievement of the SDGs. On the one hand, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Germany, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Estonia, United Kingdom, Poland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Slovenia have the highest SDG score, having achieved 80% of the 17 SDGs by 2022 [6]. On the other hand, South Sudan and Central African Republic have achieved 39% of the 17 SDGs, and Somalia, Sudan, and Liberia have also achieved 45.6%, 49.6%, and 49.9% of the 17 SDGs by 2022, respectively [6]. Hence, identification of the factors underlying the heterogeneity in SDG performance of the countries is critical for optimal policy design to improve sustainable development.

The related empirical literature has suggested that demographic characteristics, human development, income per capita, education, inflation, natural resource rent, public governance, government size, government expenditures, health expenditures, population, financial development, regional integration, and globalization are determinants of sustainable development [7,8,9,10,11]. In this research, we focus on the effects of higher education and globalization on sustainable development, considering the limited literature about the interactions among higher education, globalization, and sustainable development.

Globalization resulting from technological progress and human innovation is a term that describes the growing internalization of goods and services markets, production means, financial sectors, corporations, competition, industries, and technology, and it includes environmental, political, and cultural dimensions [12,13]. Therefore, globalization is a multidimensional process and has direct social, economic, political, and cultural implications for sustainable development and indirect implications for sustainable development via higher education. On the one hand, globalization has also led the internationalization of higher-education institutions and made a significant contribution to the development of higher-education institutions through increasing competition, knowledge, and technological spillovers [14]. On the other hand, increases in demand for higher education, commoditization of higher education, decreases in quality of higher education, growing unequal access to higher education, and cultural erosion are the main challenges of globalization for higher education [14,15].

One of the SDGs is about quality education, including a target of equal access to tertiary education. Furthermore, higher education can affect the achievement of other SDGs through human development, knowledge, innovation, and production [16,17,18]. Quality education (SDG 4) has a more than 60% positive interaction with the other SDGs [19]. Therefore, higher education is expected to positively affect the achievement of SDGs. On the other hand, globalization consisting of economic, social, and political globalization can affect sustainable development via various channels. Globalization can positively influence sustainable development through easing the countries’ access to capital, know-how, information, and green technologies [8]. However, globalization can increase environmental degradation and ecological contamination, especially in lower-income countries [20,21]. So, the net influence of globalization on sustainable development hinges on which factors are dominant.

The aim of this article is to investigate the influence of higher education and globalization on sustainable development in the 11 new European Union (EU) members. In this context, the main objectives of the article are to determine whether higher education and globalization improve sustainable development in the short and long runs. The following research questions are discussed in the study:

What is the role of higher education in the achievement of the sustainable development goals?

What is the role of globalization in the achievement of the sustainable development goals?

How does globalization affect sustainable development through education?

The new EU members have achieved significant progress over the 2000–2019 term in sustainable development, as seen in

Table 1. Sustainable development, globalization, and tertiary school enrollment in the new EU members.

Countries	Time	SDG Score *	Globalization Index **	Tertiary School Enrollment Rate ***
Bulgaria	2000	66.79	69	44.12976
	2019	73.90	80	73.37917
Croatia	2000	71.58	64	32.38117
	2019	78.18	81	67.72175
Czech Republic	2000	72.79	75	28.34876
	2019	80.00	85	65.58698
Estonia	2000	70.59	71	54.54407
	2019	80.54	83	74.23199
Hungary	2000	73.52	77	35.94101
	2019	78.59	84	52.44465
Latvia	2000	72.50	60	56.2438
	2019	79.86	80	94.86453
Lithuania	2000	67.97	64	50.89682
	2019	74.90	82	72.00897
Poland	2000	72.54	68	49.67465
	2019	80.57	80	69.18403
Romania	2000	68.93	63	23.92626
	2019	77.47	79	51.35382
Slovak Republic	2000	71.22	67	28.41184
	2019	78.01	83	46.42902
Slovenia	2000	72.82	68	55.21221
	2019	79.81	80	77.88277

* indicates the achievement rate of 17 SDGs as a percentage; ** measures the economic, social and political globalization; *** rate of tertiary enrollment to the number of individuals corresponding to tertiary education; source: Sachs et al. [26], World Bank [27], KOF Swiss Economic Institute [28].

. The EU membership process also made a significant contribution to the improvement in sustainable development because sustainable development was a clause of the Amsterdam Treaty and a main goal of the EU policies [22]. Furthermore, the European higher education policy and initiatives, such as the European Universities Initiative and European School Education Platform, also attach priority to environmental, social, and economic sustainability, and education is seen as a significant factor for EU citizens to obtain the competences for the achievement of the SDGs. The European Commission also encourages education institutions in EU members to give priority to the achievement of the SDGs by teaching and practicing sustainability skills [23]. In this context, curricula have been updated to consider the SDGs, and green campuses have been built [24]. Education is also seen as a crucial instrument to live more sustainably and make a contribution to the green transition [25]. The new EU members have achieved considerable improvement in tertiary school enrollment, as seen in Table 1. Therefore, the improvement in sustainable development by these countries can have partially resulted from higher education by following the EU policies and initiatives.

In the related literature, the researchers have generally focused on the sustainable literacy, awareness, and competency of students as seen in empirical literature reviews. In this context, Badea et al. [18], Siraje and Mbowa [29], Nousheen et al. [30], Olsson et al. [31], and Stukalo and Lytvyn [32] investigated the influence of education for sustainable development (ESD) on sustainable skills and practices by faculty staff and students from higher-education institutions. Some researchers such as Al-Naqbi and Alshannag [33], Jati et al. [34], Alkhayyal et al. [35], Alkhayyal et al. [36], Zizka and Varga [37], and Şeker and Aydınlı [38], Leiva-Brondo et al. [39], and Calculli et al. [40] also investigated the sustainability literacy, awareness, and attitudes of the students, teachers, and faculty members of higher-education institutions. Furthermore, the impact of globalization on sustainable development has been investigated by a limited number of researchers such as Ullah et al. [8], Martens and Raza [41], and Figge et al. [42]. This study aims to contribute to the relevant empirical research field by investigating the direct influence of higher education and globalization on sustainable development, unlike from the aforementioned empirical literature. Furthermore, the researchers have examined the influence of ESD on sustainability awareness and skills of the individuals, but this study investigates the share of higher education and globalization on overall sustainable development. The next section of the article reviews the empirical literature about sustainable development, education, and globalization, and the variables under consideration and the methods are defined in Section 3. The econometric analyses are implemented and their consequences are discussed in Section 4. The article comes to a conclusion in the Conclusion part.

2. Literature Review

The significant environmental degradation, climate change, natural resources depletion, and considerably growing inequality and poverty among the countries have led researchers and policy-makers to question the factors behind sustainable development. Within this context, many socio-economic factors have been suggested as the causes behind the remarkable differences in sustainable development performances of countries. In this paper, the effects of higher education and globalization on sustainable development have been analyzed because the related empirical literature has not yet sufficiently explored the interactions among higher education, globalization, and sustainable development, as seen from the following empirical literature summary.

The empirical literature has generally explored the influence of ESD on the sustainable behaviors of higher-education students and faculty staff through data obtained from questionnaires and it discovered that ESD positively influences the sustainable competence and behaviors of these individuals (e.g., see Badea et al. [18], Siraje and Mbowa [29], Nousheen et al. [30], and Olsson et al. [31]). However, the influence of ESD on all sustainable development goals has not been sufficiently explored. On the other hand, globalization also has potential to influence sustainable development through various channels, including education, but a few researchers such as Ullah et al. [8], Martens and Raza [41] and Figge et al. [42] have analyzed the influence of globalization on sustainable development through regression analysis. In this study, the short- and long-run influence of higher education and globalization on the achievement of all SDGs is investigated, considering the aforementioned research gap in the related empirical literature.

In the relevant empirical literature, Siraje and Mbowa [29] analyzed the influence of education on sustainable development in a sample of 44 participants from Kampala University and the University of Technology and Arts of Byumba through content-value analysis and reached the conclusion that ESD improved sustainable skills and practices. These findings have been further supported by a study by Badea et al. [18], who explored the influence of education for sustainable development on university students’ sustainable behaviors in a sample of 1253 students in the Bucharest University of Economic Studies and reached the conclusion that ESD positively influenced the sustainable behaviors of the participants.

Furthermore, Nousheen et al. [30] investigated the influence of a course about ESD on student–teachers’ approach toward sustainable development in Pakistan through structural equation modeling and uncovered a positive influence of ESD on the students’ approach toward sustainable development. Olsson et al. [31] also investigated the efficiency of ESD in 760 Swedish upper-secondary students through a longitudinal approach and revealed that ESD fostered the students’ sustainable-action competence.

Stukalo and Lytvyn [32] researched the influence of higher-education quality assurance in reaching the SDGs in the case of Ukrainian universities and their findings revealed that higher-education institutions and their quality assurance played a significant role in the achievement of the SDGs.

Some researchers have analyzed the sustainability literacy, and the awareness and attitudes of the students, teachers, and faculty members of higher-education institutions through methods such as questionnaires or structured interviews. In this context, Al-Naqbi and Alshannag [33] investigated the students’ approaches toward ESD and the environment in a sample of 823 participants from the United Arab Emirates University and discovered that the students had a positive approach toward education for sustainable development. Jati et al. [34] also explored the awareness level of the students from Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta in Indonesia about SDGs and reached the conclusion that the students were highly aware of the SDGs.

Alkhayyal et al. [35] investigated the sustainability awareness of the faculty members in higher education in Saudi Arabia and discovered that the faculty members had a high level of sustainability awareness. Alahmari et al. [36] reached similar findings to Alkhayyal et al. [36]. Zizka and Varga [37] also assessed the sustainability literacy level of the students from a hospitality management school located in Switzerland and reached the conclusion that the students had high interest and support toward sustainability. Şeker and Aydınlı [38] researched the sustainability awareness of teachers in a sample of 12 science teachers from three schools in Istanbul, Turkey by descriptive and content analyses and revealed that science teachers had a sufficient knowledge about sustainable development.

Leiva-Brondo et al. [39] also researched the knowledge of students from the Universitat Politècnica de València about the SDGs and revealed that the students were aware of the SDGs, but most of them did not completely comprehend all the SDGs. Calculli et al. [40] analyzed the environmental awareness of the individuals in a sample of 1834 participants from Italian high schools and the students’ acquaintances and reached the conclusion that younger individuals had a higher awareness of environmental sustainability.

Very few researchers have researched the impact of globalization on sustainable development in the empirical literature, but the related literature has remained inconclusive in compatible with theoretical expectations. In one of the first studies, Martens and Raza [41] analyzed the interaction between globalization and various indicators of sustainable development in 117 countries and found a positive relationship between globalization and the indicators of the human development index and the responsible competitiveness index, but they uncovered a negative relationship between globalization and the indicators of the global environment facility benefits index and an insignificant relationship between globalization and the sustainable society index. Tausch [21] also investigated the influence of economic openness on the environment in 175 states by regression and uncovered a negative influence of economic openness on CO₂ emissions.

Figge et al. [42] analyzed the interplay between globalization and sustainable development in nearly 171 countries through regression and correlation analysis and found that the globalization index raised the ecological footprint of consumption, import, and export; all globalization dimensions except political globalization increased the pressures on the environment. Ullah et al. [8] researched the factors underlying sustainable development in 64 Belt and Road economies over the 2003–2018 term by dynamic regression and disclosed a negative influence of globalization on sustainable development.

The main research hypothesis of the article based on the above literature summary are as follows:

Hypothesis 1.

There is significant interaction between higher education and sustainable development in the short and long terms.

Hypothesis 2.

There is significant interaction between globalization and sustainable development in the short and long terms.

3. Data and Methods

The effect of higher education and globalization on sustainable development is explored in the new EU members (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) over the 2000–2019 period through cointegration and causality tests. The related empirical literature has generally analyzed the influence of ESD on sustainable skills and practices of higher-education students and faculty staff and also explored the sustainable awareness of the higher-education students, faculty staff, and teachers (e.g., see Badea et al. [18], Siraje and Mbowa [29], Nousheen et al. [30], Zizka and Varga [37], and Leiva-Brondo et al. [39]) through a questionnaire method. Furthermore, a limited number of researchers such as Ullah et al. [8], Martens and Raza [41], and Figge et al. [42] investigated the influence of globalization on sustainable development through regression analysis. However, we aim to investigate the short- and long-run influence of higher education and globalization on sustainable development. Therefore, causality and cointegration tests that give robust results in the presence of cross-sectional dependency and heterogeneity are chosen to analyze the interactions among higher education, globalization, and sustainable development.

In the econometric analyses, sustainable development (SDG) is represented by an overall mean score of sustainable development. The overall score of sustainable development quantifies the progress in the achievement of the 17 SDGs as a percentage of achievement of the 17 SDGs (e.g., a score of 80 denotes that 80% of the 17 SDGs have been carried out) [26]. Higher education (HEDU) is proxied by tertiary school enrollment, calculated as rate of tertiary enrollment (regardless of age) to the number of persons in the age of tertiary education [27]. Lastly, globalization (GLOB) is proxied by the KOF globalization index of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute [28]. The data employed in the econometric analyses are yearly and their period is 2000–2019 because all series for the countries under consideration are available in the 2000–2019 period. The econometric analyses are performed by EViews 11.0, Gauss 11.0, and Stata 17.0.

The descriptive indicators of the SDG (sustainable development goal) score, HEDU (tertiary school enrollment), and GLOB (globalization index) are depicted in

Table 2. Descriptive characteristics of the series.

Characteristics	SDG	HEDU	GLOB
Mean	74.84714	61.34096	76.95000
Median	74.92500	64.29553	78.00000
Maximum	80.63000	94.86453	85.00000
Minimum	66.79000	23.92626	60.00000
Std.Dev.	2.963931	14.52342	5.501536
Skewness	−0.264730	−0.269905	−0.879150
Kurtosis	2.614462	2.601434	3.244334

. The mean value of SDG is 74.84, which means that the new EU members have achieved 74.84% of the 17 SDGs. On the other hand, the mean of tertiary school enrollment and globalization level are respectively 61.34% and 76.95, but both HEDU and GLOB substantially vary among the new EU members when compared with the SDGs.

The short-term mutual interaction among higher education, globalization, and sustainable development is investigated by the Granger non-causality test of Dumitrescu and Hurlin [43]. The test produces relatively more robust findings considering the heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependency among the variables and can be used if there does not exist a cointegration interaction among higher education, globalization, and sustainable development. The Dumitrescu and Hurlin [43] Granger non-causality test employs the following equation to test the mutual interaction between two variables such as x and y:

$$y_{i,t}={\alpha }_i+{\displaystyle \sum }_{k=1}^K{\gamma }_i^{\left(k\right)}{y}_{i,t-k}+{\displaystyle \sum }_{k=1}^K{\beta }_i^{\left(k\right)}{x}_{i,t-k}+{\epsilon }_{i,t}$$

(1)

where ${\beta }_i={\beta }_i^{\left(1\right)}={\beta }_i^{\left(2\right)},\dots ,{\beta }_i^{\left(k\right)}$ and (k) is the optimal lag length. Furthermore, ${\alpha }_i$ shows the cross-sectional specific effects, ${\beta }_i^{\left(k\right)}$ indicates the regression slope coefficients, and ${\gamma }_i^{\left(k\right)}$ is the length coefficients. The acceptance of the null hypothesis indicates an insignificant causality from x to y, but acceptance of the alternative hypothesis denotes there exists at least a significant causality from x to y. However, x is a Granger cause of y for all countries if the null hypothesis is denied and $N_1=0$, and a homogeneous panel causality is reached [43].

The long-term interplay among sustainable development, higher education, and globalization is examined with a Westerlund and Edgerton [44] bootstrap cointegration test in view of heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. The test figures on the subsistence of heterogeneity, cross-sectional dependency, autocorrelation, and heteroscedasticity while checking the cointegration interaction among the series and also generates relatively more reliable findings for small sample sizes [44]. The cointegration test rests on the Lagrange multiplier (LM) suggested by McCoskey and Kao [45] and $y_{it}$ is produced as follows:

$$y_{it}={\alpha }_i+x_{it}{\beta }_i+z_{it}$$

(2)

where t (years) = 1, …, T and i (countries) = 1, …., N. $z_{it}\left(error term\right)=u_{it}+v_{it}$ and $v_{it}=\sum _{j=1}^t{ƞ}_{ij}$ (${ƞ}_{ij}$ is error term with characteristics of zero mean, normal distribution, and ${\sigma }_i^i$ variance). The null hypothesis of the test suggests that there exist significant cointegration interactions among higher education, globalization, and sustainable development.

The cointegration coefficients of the panel and cross-sections are predicted by the CCE (common corelated effect) estimator of Pesaran [46]. The estimator is developed for heterogenous panels with cross-sectional dependency and generates consistent results having asymptotic normal distribution when T is constant and $N\to \infty$ or $T and N\to \infty$. The CCE estimator is formed by the following linear panel data model:

$$y_{it}={\alpha }_i^{\prime }{d}_t+{\beta }_i^{\prime }{x}_{it}+e_{it} i=1,2,\dots ,N;t=1,2,\dots ,T$$

(3)

4. Econometric Analysis and Discussion

In the analysis section of the paper, subsistence of cross-sectional dependency and heterogeneity between higher education, globalization, and sustainable development are investigated through LM, LM CD, LM_adj., and delta-tilde tests. The test findings are displayed in

Table 3. Consequences of cross-sectional dependency and heterogeneity tests.

Test	Test Statistic	p Value
LM	43.164	0.001
LM CD	46.988	0.017
LMadj.	44.095	0.000
$\widetilde{∆}$	10.473	0.005
${\widetilde{∆}}_{\mathrm{adj}.}$	12.340	0.000

. These three cross-sectional dependency tests’ probability values are revealed to be less than 5%. Hence, H0 (subsistence of cross-sectional independency) is denied and there exists cross-sectional dependency among three series. Consequently, we can say that that indicators of sustainable development, higher education, and globalization in one member of the new EU states can affect the other new EU members because of the EU and highly globalized world. In other words, one country can affect the other countries’ higher education, globalization, and sustainable development levels through close social and economic relations and higher student, labor, and human mobility. The delta-tilde tests’ probability values are also discovered to be less than 1% and, thus, the H0 (subsistence of homogeneity) is declined. That is to say, panel estimates consist of country-specific heterogeneity.

The stationarity analysis of higher education, globalization, and sustainable development should be conducted because we need to know the integration levels of the variables prior to the application of cointegration and causality tests. In this context, the cross-sectionally augmented Im–Pesaran–Shin (IPS) [47] (CIPS) test suggested by Pesaran [48] is employed to conduct the stationarity analysis of three variables because of the subsistence of cross-sectional dependency in the panel dataset. The test consequences are displayed in

Table 4. Consequences of CIPS unit root test.

Variables	Constant	Constant + Trend
SDG	−0.946	−1.120
D(SDG)	−8.315 **	−8.991 **
HEDU	−1.140	−1.215
D(HEDU)	−9.027 **	−9.835 **
GLOB	−0.889	−1.068
D(GLOB)	−9.574 **	−10.022 **

** significant at 5% significance level.

, and H0 (subsistence of unit root) is acknowledged for the level values of three series because test statistics’ probability values are uncovered to be less than the critical values in Pesaran [48]. However, the H0 is declined for first differences of SDG, HEDU, and GLOB. As a result, SDG, HEDU, and GLOB are reached to be I (1).

4.1. Long-Run Analysis

The long-run interaction among sustainable development, higher education, and globalization is checked through the Westerlund and Edgerton [44] cointegration test through taking the subsistence of cross-section dependence and heterogeneity in the panel dataset into account and the test consequences are reported in

Table 5. Consequences of bootstrap cointegration test.

Constant			Constant + Trend
Test Statistic	Asymptotic p-Value	Bootstrap p-Value	Test Statistic	Asymptotic p-Value	Bootstrap p-Value
7.441	0.256	0.317	8.945	0.308	0.413

Note: the bootstrapping critical values are generated through 10,000 repetitions.

. The probability values derived from a bootstrapping process are discovered to be higher than 5% and thus subsistence of significant cointegration among sustainable development, education, and globalization is reached.

The cointegration coefficients are predicted by a CCE estimator after identification of significant cointegration and the coefficients are depicted in

Table 6. The cointegration coefficients.

Countries	HEDU	GLOB
Bulgaria	0.093 **	0.326 **
Croatia	0.061 **	0.382 **
Czechia	0.074 **	0.299 **
Estonia	0.056	0.197 **
Hungary	0.084 **	0.214 **
Latvia	0.102	0.147 **
Lithuania	0.088 **	0.198 **
Poland	0.103 **	0.358 **
Romania	0.079 **	0.309 **
Slovakia	0.072	0.325
Slovenia	0.055 **	0.280 **
Panel	0.078 **	0.302 **

** indicates that it is significant at 5%.

. The panel coefficients indicate that higher education and globalization positively influence sustainable development in the long term, but the influence of globalization on sustainable development is relatively higher when compared with the influence of higher education. On the other hand, country cointegration coefficients indicate that higher education has a positive influence on sustainable development in all countries except Estonia, Latvia, and Slovakia, and globalization has a positive influence on sustainable development in all countries except Slovakia.

Universities are a crucial factor for the achievement of SDGs because they are a source of knowledge creation and transfer, and training, and they improve the awareness of environmental, economic, and social sustainability [39,49]. The related empirical literature has also verified that education for sustainable development generally leads to a positive influence on the sustainable behaviors and competency of higher-education students, faculty staff, and teachers [18,29,30,31,32]. On the other hand, some researchers have reached the conclusion that students and faculty members of higher-education institutions and teachers have a high level of sustainability literacy and awareness [33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40]. So, the studies point out that faculty students have a high level of sustainability awareness and ESD has a significant positive influence on the sustainability awareness and competency of the students. On the other hand, quality education (SDG 4) has a more than 60% positive interaction with the other SDGs [19]. Therefore, a positive influence of higher education on sustainable development is theoretically and empirically expected in the long run because higher-education students will be the key persons in the governmental and private sectors in the future. So, the positive long-run influence of higher education on sustainable development in the new EU members is consistent with these theoretical and empirical considerations. However, Czechia, Romania, and Croatia experienced the largest increases in tertiary school enrollment during the 2000–2019 period, but Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania had a relatively higher positive influence of higher education on sustainable development. These small differences about the influence of higher education on sustainable development can have resulted from country-specific characteristics such as human development and higher-education institutions. In this context, the curricula and methods of other higher-education institutions should be monitored to achieve more benefits in sustainable development from higher education.

Furthermore, the influence of globalization on sustainable development can differ from countries’ peculiarities such as human development, literacy level, and economic development. The limited number of empirical studies has also reached different findings about the nexus of globalization and sustainable development [8,21,41,42]. However, in this article, a significant positive influence of globalization on sustainable development is discovered to be compatible with [41]. The positive influence of globalization on sustainable development can have resulted from the new EU member states already being high-income countries and member states of the EU, one of the main leading economies in the globalized world. However, the influence of globalization on sustainable development is found to be relatively higher than that of higher education and this can have resulted from globalization being a multifaceted phenomenon and from globalization being able to affect the various sustainable-development channels including education and also because the new EU members are high-income countries and EU members.

4.2. Short-Run Analysis

The causal interaction among sustainable development, education, and globalization is investigated by the Dumitrescu and Hurlin [43] causality test, and the consequences are displayed in

Table 7. Causality test findings.

Null Hypothesis	Test	Test Statistics	p-Value
D(LNHEDU) ↛ D(LNSDG)	Whnc	8.563	0.000
	Zhnc	8.903	0.000
	Ztild	9.325	0.000
D(LNSDG) ↛ D(LNHEDU)	Whnc	0.843	0.136
	Zhnc	1.202	0.141
	Ztild	1.794	0.157
D(LNGLOB) ↛ D(LNSDG)	Whnc	9.126	0.000
	Zhnc	9.808	0.000
	Ztild	10.142	0.000
D(LNSDG)↛ D(LNGLOB)	Whnc	6.315	0.000
	Zhnc	7.147	0.000
	Ztild	7.669	0.000

. The causality test uncovers a unilateral causality from higher education to sustainable development and a bidirectional causality between sustainable development and globalization.

Theoretically, a significant interaction between higher education, globalization, and sustainable development is also expected in the short run because higher-education students are individuals of the societies and, in turn, improvements in the sustainability awareness and competency of the students can influence overall sustainable development in the short run. After all, no researchers have yet directly analyzed the causality among these three variables. The consequences of the causality test indicate that higher education has a significant effect over sustainable development even in the short run. Furthermore, a reciprocal interaction between sustainable development and globalization also exists for the new EU members.

5. Conclusions

Climate change, significant environmental degradation, population growth, urbanization, and depletion of natural resources have been the major threats ahead of global economic growth. These negative developments, together with the considerably growing poverty and income inequality in the world, have led the developed countries and international organization such as the UN and OECD to question economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The researchers have also investigated the significant factors underlying sustainable development.

The researchers have generally analyzed the influence of education for sustainability on the awareness, behaviors, and competency of sustainability in samples of students and faculty staff of higher education and teachers. In this article, the short- and long-term influences of higher education, together with globalization, on sustainable development is analyzed in a sample of the new EU member states that experienced a full institutional and economic transformation and integrated with the EU and global economies, unlike from the related limited literature, and the article aims to make a contribution to the relevant literature.

The findings of short-term analysis by a causality test reveal that both higher education and globalization have significant influence on sustainable development. In other words, both higher education and globalization have significant influence on sustainable development in the short term. The short-term influence of higher education on sustainable development can grow out of the improvements in the sustainability awareness, competency, and behaviors of the students and faculty staff of higher-education institutions and this prediction has been extensively verified by the findings of the empirical studies presented in the literature review. On the other hand, the short-term influence of globalization on sustainable development can result from various channels such as easy access to capital, know-how, information, and green technologies, and externalities from the internationalization of the higher-education institutions.

Furthermore, the long-term analysis by a cointegration test points out that both higher education and globalization have a positive influence on sustainable development. In this regard, the long-term positive influence of higher education on sustainable development can proceed from improvements in the sustainability awareness and competency of higher-education students because these individuals would be the critical persons who manage the public and private sectors in the future. However, universities have the potential to influence sustainable development through channels of technology, knowledge creation, and university–private sector collaborations. Furthermore, the long-term positive influence of globalization on sustainable development can be different depending on country-specific characteristics. Therefore, the positive influence of globalization on sustainable development in the new EU members can result from the current economic and human development levels of these countries. Lastly, the relatively higher influence of globalization than higher education on sustainable development is probably due to the multifaceted structure of globalization and the country-specific characteristics of the new EU members such as economic development, human development, and infrastructure.

Consequently, higher-education institutions can foster sustainable development through various channels such as increasing the awareness of environmental, economic and social sustainability, and knowledge creation and transfer, and a consensus about the positive influence of education for sustainable development on sustainable behaviors has also been widely verified by researchers and UN conferences. Therefore, higher education is a critical instrument to make progress in the achievement of sustainable development in the short and long terms. Moreover, globalization can influence sustainable development based on the economic and human-development levels of the countries. Future studies can be focused on the interaction channels among higher education, globalization, and sustainable development to see the channels by which higher education and globalization influence sustainable development.