ASEAN Economies Show Uneven Links Between Knowledge, Institutions and Green Resilience

A country-specific time-series analysis of seven ASEAN economies finds no uniform regional pattern linking national knowledge capabilities and institutional quality to long-run green economic resilience. Validated long-run relationships were strongest in Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, whereas Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore did not meet the study’s joint long-run validation criteria in the baseline specifications.

The study examines seven national economies over 2000–2024. It focuses on the long-run adjustment of green economic resilience while accounting for national differences in the broader relationships involving knowledge capabilities, institutional quality, renewable-energy transition, financial development and productive transformation. Rather than impose one common regional coefficient structure, the analysis uses country-specific autoregressive distributed lag error-correction models to capture heterogeneous adjustment processes and nationally differentiated sustainability pathways. The results therefore concern associations estimated within the specified models, not demonstrated causal effects.

Thailand produced the clearest and most robust evidence that the relationship between knowledge capabilities and green economic resilience depends on institutional quality. Its conditional estimates showed that the marginal association between national knowledge capabilities and green economic resilience became more favorable at higher levels of institutional quality. The Philippines exhibited a similar pattern, but with less precise estimates. The reported evidence does not support extending Thailand’s result uniformly across all seven economies, and the analyses for the other countries were negative, statistically weak, or sensitive to model specification and the treatment of structural breaks.

The contrast among the four economies with validated long-run relationships is central to the findings. Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam met the study’s joint long-run validation criteria, but that outcome alone does not mean their underlying relationships were identical. In the Philippines, the institutional-complementarity pattern resembled Thailand’s while remaining less precisely estimated. For the remaining economies, the country results did not support the same interpretation, underscoring the absence of a single ASEAN-wide knowledge–institution–resilience mechanism.

Overall, the study characterizes national knowledge capabilities as conditional development assets whose observed contribution to green economic resilience depends on institutional alignment and complementary structural conditions. Its scope is limited to seven ASEAN economies, a 2000–2024 period and the assumptions embodied in the country-specific models. The findings provide evidence of uneven statistical relationships, including the strongest institutional complementarity in Thailand, rather than a universal effect or a causal conclusion. They also show why national estimates can differ substantially: the models yield different validated long-run relationships, signs and levels of precision, while several results depend on specification and structural-break treatment. The authors’ broader contribution is to frame green economic resilience as a country-specific interaction among knowledge, institutions and structural change, rather than as an outcome governed by one uniform regional pathway.

Subject of Research: Country-specific analysis of knowledge capabilities, institutional quality and green economic resilience in seven ASEAN economies from 2000 to 2024.

Article Title: Unleashing the influence of national knowledge capabilities and institutions for long-run green resilience across selected ASEAN economies

Article References: Tran, N. P. (2026). Unleashing the influence of national knowledge capabilities and institutions for long-run green resilience across selected ASEAN economies. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04677-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04677-6

Keywords: ASEAN, green economic resilience, national knowledge capabilities, institutional quality, error-correction models, renewable energy transition, financial development, productive transformation, Thailand, Philippines, Unleashing, influence