Research on the relationship between globalisation and the environment tends to focus
on the direct effect of globalisation, rarely considering the role of institutions. This paper
introduces insights from political economy, which suggests that environmental sustain-
ability models would be greatly improved if institutions are considered. We test this
hypothesis by estimating the relationship between economic globalisation, bureau-
cratic quality, and ecological footprint in Ghana for the period 1984–2016. The long-run
analysis is based on the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) bound testing approach
to cointegration. The result supports the hypothesis that expansion in economic glob-
alisation has a reducing effect on environmental quality. Bureaucratic quality appears
to exert a significant positive effect on ecological footprint. Furthermore, the estimation
shows that the quality of institutions is critical for environmental quality. Based on the
results the paper presents some policy recommendations