The sustainable development goals: Theory and a holistic evidence from the USA

This study emphasizes a crucial consideration for policymakers working towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, such as social welfare, environmental sustainability, democratic governance, fair income distribution, and other related goals. Policymakers need to account for the characteristics of series associated with these goals, specifically their stationarity or the presence of unit roots; the reason is that these characteristics have a significant impact on the success of the policies. Notably, policies relying on unit root series may result in costly and time-consuming efforts to achieve the targeted SDGs. This study investigates interactions between seventeen SDGs for the USA with a holistic approach between 1960–2022. This investigation employs the FWADF, FWKSS, and Bai-Perron tests for seventeen selected representative variables (series) of the SDGs. Finally, it presents and discusses the main policy implications of the empirical findings for seven series (variables) containing unit roots. The findings of this study have necessary implications for policymakers and the achievement of the USA’s SDGs. One of the empirical findings of this study is that the Energy Policy Act enacted in 2003 encouraged more significant development and use of clean and renewable energy, denoting SDG7 in the USA. Another finding is that contrary to expectations, there was no significant increase in the number of patents denoting SDG9 after the America Invents Act came into force in 2013.