Bounds test approach to cointegration and causality between nuclear energy consumption and economic growth in India

This paper attempts to examine the dynamic relationship between economic growth, nuclear energy consumption, labor and capital for India for the period 1969–2006. Applying the bounds test approach to cointegration developed by Pesaran et al. (2001) we find that there was a short- and a long-run relationship between nuclear energy consumption and economic growth. Using four long-run estimators we also found that nuclear energy consumption has a positive and a statistically significant impact on India's economic growth. Further, applying the Toda and Yamamoto (1995) approach to Granger causality and the variance decomposition approach developed by Pesaran and Shin (1998), we found a positive and a significant uni-directional causality running from nuclear energy consumption to economic growth without feedback. This implies that economic growth in India is dependent on nuclear energy consumption where a decrease in nuclear energy consumption may lead to a decrease in real income. For a fast growing energy-dependent economy this may have far-reaching implications for economic growth. India's economic growth can be frustrated if energy conservation measures are undertaken without due regard to the negative impact they have on economic growth.     

Coal consumption and economic growth revisited

This paper revisits the causal relationship between coal consumption and real GDP for six major coal consuming countries for the period 1965–2005 within a vector autoregressive (VAR) framework by including capital and labour as additional variables. Applying a modified version of the Granger causality test due to Toda and Yamamoto [Toda HY, Yamamoto T. Statistical inference in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated process. J Econom 1995;66:225–50], we found a unidirectional causality running from coal consumption to economic growth in India and Japan while the opposite causality running from economic growth to coal consumption was found in China and South Korea. In contrast there was a bi-directional causality running between economic growth and coal consumption in South Africa and the United States. Variance decomposition analysis seems to confirm our Granger causality results. The policy implication is that measures adopted to mitigate the adverse effects of coal consumption may be taken without harming economic growth in China and South Korea. In contrast, for the remaining four countries conservation measures can harm economic growth.     

Energy consumption and economic growth in the USA: Evidence from renewable energy

Recent debates about renewable energy consumption manifest two main expectations. Firstly, renewable energy consumption should contribute to economic growth and secondly, it should not cause damage on environment. This study focuses on the first issue by applying Toda–Yamamoto procedure and bootstrap-corrected causality test for the US since empirical literature criticizes the Toda–Yamamoto test which bases on asymptotic distribution. The models consist of real GDP, employment, investment and kinds of renewable energy consumption. Only one causal relationship was found from biomass-waste-derived energy consumption to real GDP. No causal relationship was found between real GDP and all of the other renewable energy kinds—total renewable energy consumption, geothermal energy consumption, hydro-electric energy consumption, biomass energy consumption and biomass-wood-derived energy consumption. That is using of energy from waste cause not only solving the dumping problems but also it contributes to real GDP. For policy purpose, the results of this study suggest that countries should concentrate on energy producing from waste as an alternative energy resource.     

Electricity consumption and economic growth: a time series experience for 17 African countries

While the availability of electricity by itself is not a panacea for the economic and social problems facing Africa, the supply of electricity is nevertheless believed to be a necessary requirement for Africa's economic and social development. This paper tests the long-run and causal relationship between electricity consumption per capita and real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita for 17 African countries for the period 1971–2001 using a newly developed cointegration test proposed by Pesaran et al. (2001) and using a modified version of the Granger causality test due to Toda and Yamamoto (1995). The advantage of using these two approaches is that they both avoid the pre-testing bias associated with conventional unit root and cointegration tests. The empirical evidence shows that there was a long-run relationship between electricity consumption per capita and real GDP per capita for only 9 countries and Granger causality for only 12 countries. For 6 countries there was a positive uni-directional causality running from real GDP per capita to electricity consumption per capita; an opposite causality for 3 countries and bi-directional causality for the remaining 3 countries. The result should, however, be interpreted with care as electricity consumption accounts for less than 4% of total energy consumption in Africa and only grid-supplied electricity is taken into account.     

Renewable energy consumption and economic growth: Evidence from a panel of OECD countries

This study examines the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth for a panel of twenty OECD countries over the period 1985–2005 within a multivariate framework. Given the relatively short span of the time series data, a panel cointegration and error correction model is employed to infer the causal relationship. The heterogeneous panel cointegration test reveals a long-run equilibrium relationship between real GDP, renewable energy consumption, real gross fixed capital formation, and the labor force with the respective coefficients positive and statistically significant. The Granger-causality results indicate bidirectional causality between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in both the short- and long-run.     

Energy,human capital and economic growth in Asia Pacific countries — Evidence from a panel cointegration and causality analysis

This paper examines the cointegration and causal relationship between energy consumption and economic development in 16 Asia Pacific countries over the period 1970–2011 using the augmented production function which considers not only physical capital and labor but also human capital. This is likely among the first of the energy–growth nexus literature to include human capital in the multivariate framework. Using recently developed panel unit root test and cointegration test that allow for cross-sectional dependence, this paper finds a long-run cointegrating relationship between these variables. Continuously-updated fully modified (Cup-FM) estimates are subsequently compared with panel heterogeneous fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) results to confirm the importance of accounting for interdependence across countries. The bootstrap panel Granger causality test results find economic growth Granger cause energy use in the region but the relationship varies for individual countries.     

The relationship between CO2 emissions,energy consumption and economic growth in Italy

This study examines the relationship between CO₂ emissions, energy consumption and economic growth in Italy over the period 1970–2006. Results of unit root tests show that all variables are non-stationary in their level form, but stationary in first differences form. The causal relationship between variables is examined using causality test in a vector autoregressive framework. Our empirical results show that CO₂ emissions, energy consumption and economic growth are not cointegrated. Moreover, the Toda and Yamamoto Granger non-causality test shows a bidirectional causality between CO₂ emissions and economic growth, as well as between CO₂ emissions and energy consumption. Forecast error variance decompositions evidence that the errors in real per capita GDP are mainly due to uncertainty in GDP itself, while the errors in predicting the energy consumption and the CO₂ emissions are sensitive to disturbances in the other two equations.     

Energy consumption and economic growth: Evidence from the economic community of West African States (ECOWAS)

Access to modern energy is believed to be a prerequisite for sustainable development, poverty alleviation and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.However, theoretical models and empirical results offer conflicting evidence on the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth that we remain largely unsure of the cause-and-effect nature of this relationship, if indeed a relationship exists at all.This paper tests, in a panel context, the long-run relationship between energy access, and economic growth for fifteen African countries from 1980 to 2008 by using recently developed panel cointegration techniques.We adopt a three-stage approach, consisting of panel unit root, panel cointegration and Granger causality tests to study the dynamic causal relationships between energy consumption, energy prices and growth as well as relationship between electricity consumption, prices and growth.Results show that GDP and energy consumption as well as GDP and electricity move together in the long-run. By estimating these long-run relationships and testing for causality using panel-based error correction models, we found unidirectional long-run and short-run causality. The causality is running from GDP to energy consumption in the short-run, and from energy consumption to GDP in the long-run. There is also evidence of unidirectional causality running from electricity consumption to GDP in the long-run.This study thus provides empirical evidence of long-run and causal relationships between energy consumption and economic growth for our sample of fifteen countries; suggesting that lack or limited access to modern energy services could hamper economic growth and compromise the development prospects of these countries.     

The role of natural gas consumption and trade in Tunisia's output

This paper examines the impact of natural gas consumption, real gross fixed capital formation and trade on the real GDP in the case of Tunisia over the period 1980–2010. We use an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to test for cointegration between the variables. The Toda–Yamamoto approach is then used to test for causality. Our findings indicate the existence of a long-term relationship between the variables. Natural gas consumption, real gross fixed capital formation and trade add in economic growth. Natural gas consumption, real gross fixed capital formation and real trade cause real GDP in Tunisia. These findings open up new insights for policymakers to formulate a comprehensive energy policy to sustain economic growth in the long-term.     

Nuclear energy consumption and economic growth in OECD countries: Cross-sectionally dependent heterogeneous panel causality analysis

The purpose of this study is to determine the direction causality between nuclear energy consumption and economic growth in OECD countries. The empirical model that includes capital and labor force as the control variables is estimated for the panel of fourteen OECD countries during the period 1980–2007. Apart from the previous studies in the nuclear energy consumption and economic growth relationship, this study utilizes the novel panel causality approach, which allows both cross-sectional dependency and heterogeneity across countries. The findings show that there is no causality between nuclear energy consumption and economic growth in eleven out of fourteen cases, supporting the neutrality hypothesis. As a sensitivity analysis, we also conduct Toda–Yamamoto time series causality method and find out that the results from the panel causality analysis are slightly different than those from the time-series causality analysis. Thereby, we can conclude that the choice of statistical tools in analyzing the nature of causality between nuclear energy consumption and economic growth may play a key role for policy implications.     

The causality relationship between energy consumption and GDP in G-11 countries revisited

This paper explores whether energy conservation policies can be implemented in countries with the same level of development. That is, is restraining energy consumption without compromising economic growth feasible in all industrialized countries? A new Granger non-causality testing procedure developed by Toda and Yamamoto [1995, Journal of Econometrics 66, 225–250] is applied to re-investigate the relationship, if any, between energy consumption and income in 11 major industrialized countries. The results clearly do not support the view that energy consumption and income are neutral with respect to each other, except in the case of the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden where a neutral relationship is found. Bi-directional causality in the United States and uni-directional running from energy consumption to GDP in Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland are found. This indicates that energy conservation may hinder economic growth in the latter five countries. Further, the causality relationship appears to be uni-directional but reversed for France, Italy and Japan which implies that, in these three countries, energy conservation may be viable without being detrimental to economic growth.     

Economic growth,energy consumption and CO2 emissions in India: a disaggregated causal analysis

This study examines the long-run and short-run causal relationships among energy consumption, real gross domestic product (GDP) and CO₂ emissions using aggregate and disaggregate (sectoral) energy consumption measures utilising annual data from 1971 to 2011. The autoregressive distributed lag bounds test reveals that there is a long-run relationship among the variables concerned at both aggregate and disaggregate levels. The Toda–Yamamoto causality tests, however, reveal that the long-run as well short-run causal relationship among the variables is not uniform across sectors. The weight of evidences of the study indicates that there is short-run causality from electricity consumption to economic growth, and to CO₂ emissions. The results suggest that India should take appropriate cautious steps to sustain high growth rate and at the same time to control emissions of CO₂. Further, energy and environmental policies should acknowledge the sectoral differences in the relationship between energy consumption and real gross domestic product.     

Energy consumption and economic growth: Evidence from the Commonwealth of Independent States

This study examines the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for eleven countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States over the period 1991–2005 within a multivariate panel data framework. Based on (Pedroni, 1999) and (Pedroni, 2004) heterogeneous panel cointegration test and corresponding error correction model, cointegration is present between real GDP, energy consumption, real gross fixed capital formation, and labor force with the respective coefficients positive and statistically significant. The results of the error correction model reveal the presence of unidirectional causality from energy consumption to economic growth in the short-run while bidirectional causality between energy consumption and economic growth in the long-run. Thus, the results lend support for the feedback hypothesis associated with the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth.     

Energy consumption and economic growth revisited in African countries

The aim of this paper is to provide new empirical evidence on the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for 21 African countries over the period from 1970 to 2006, using recently developed panel cointegration and causality tests. The countries are divided into two groups: net energy importers and net energy exporters. It is found that there exists a long-run equilibrium relationship between energy consumption, real GDP, prices, labor and capital for each group of countries as well as for the whole set of countries. This result is robust to possible cross-country dependence and still holds when allowing for multiple endogenous structural breaks, which can differ among countries. Furthermore, we find that decreasing energy consumption decreases growth and vice versa, and that increasing energy consumption increases growth, and vice versa, and that this applies for both energy exporters and importers. Finally, there is a marked difference in the cointegration relationship when country groups are considered.     

The causal relationship between energy resources and economic growth in Brazil

This study investigates the causal relationship between clean and non-clean energy consumption and economic growth in Brazil over the period of 1980–2009. Clean energy consumption at aggregated level of total renewable energy consumption and disaggregated levels of hydroelectric, new renewables, and nuclear energy consumption are tested within a production function framework. A cointegration test reveals a long-term equilibrium relationship between real output, capital, labor, and renewable and non-renewable energy consumption at aggregated level, and a long-term equilibrium relationship between real output, capital, labor, and hydroelectric/new renewables/nuclear and fossil fuel energy consumption at disaggregated level. The capital, labor, and new renewables elasticities of real output are positive and statistically significant, other energy consumption item's elasticities are insignificant. The results from error correction model reveal the interdependencies between new renewables, nuclear, fossil fuel, and total non-renewable energy consumption and economic growth, the unidirectional causality from hydroelectric/total renewable consumption to economic growth, the substitutability between new renewables and fossil fuel consumption, and the substitutability between new renewables and nuclear energy consumption. Additionally, nuclear and new renewables energy consumption responds to bring the system back to equilibrium. Overall, aggregated analysis may obscure the relationship between different types of clean energy consumption and economic growth.     

Energy consumption and economic growth in Central America: Evidence from a panel cointegration and error correction model

This study examines the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for six Central American countries over the period 1980–2004 within a multivariate framework. Given the relatively short span of the time series data, a panel cointegration and error correction model is employed to infer the causal relationship. Based on the heterogeneous panel cointegration test by Pedroni (Pedroni, P., 1999. Critical values for cointegration tests in heterogeneous panels with multiple regressors. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 61, 653–670; Pedroni, P., 2004. Panel cointegration: asymptotic and finite sample properties of pooled time series tests with an application to the PPP hypothesis: new results. Econometric Theory 20, 597–627), cointegration is present between real GDP, energy consumption, the labor force, and real gross fixed capital formation with the respective coefficients positive and statistically significant. The Granger-causality results indicate the presence of both short-run and long-run causality from energy consumption to economic growth which supports the growth hypothesis.     

Energy consumption and economic growth nexus in Tanzania: An ARDL bounds testing approach

In this paper, we examine the intertemporal causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in Tanzania during the period of 1971–2006. Unlike the majority of the previous studies, we employ the newly developed autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL)-bounds testing approach by Pesaran et al. [2001. Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships. Journal of Applied Econometrics 16, 289–326] to examine this linkage. We also use two proxies of energy consumption, namely total energy consumption per capita and electricity consumption per capita. The results of the bounds test show that there is a stable long-run relationship between each of the proxies of energy consumption and economic growth. The results of the causality test, on the other hand, show that there is a unidirectional causal flow from total energy consumption to economic growth and a prima-facie causal flow from electricity consumption to economic growth. Overall, the study finds that energy consumption spurs economic growth in Tanzania.     

Energy consumption and economic growth in China: A multivariate causality test

This study takes a fresh look at the direction of causality between energy consumption and economic growth in China during the period from 1972 to 2006, using a multivariate cointegration approach. Given the weakness associated with the bivariate causality framework, the current study performs a multivariate causality framework by incorporating capital and labor variables into the model between energy consumption and economic growth based on neo-classical aggregate production theory. Using the recently developed autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach, a long-run equilibrium cointegration relationship has been found to exist between economic growth and the explanatory variables: energy consumption, capital and employment. Empirical results reveal that the long-run parameter of energy consumption on economic growth in China is approximately 0.15, through a long-run static solution of the estimated ARDL model, and that for the short-run is approximately 0.12 by the error correction model. The study also indicates the existence of short-run and long-run causality running from energy consumption, capital and employment to economic growth. The estimation results imply that energy serves as an important source of economic growth, thus more vigorous energy use and economic development strategies should be adopted for China.     

What if energy time series are not independent? Implications for energy-GDP causality analysis

Time series of electricity, petroleum products, and renewables are found to be highly correlated with total energy consumption. Applying this insight to the huge literature on energy-GDP causality explains that the results of total energy-GDP causality tests frequently coincide with the results of energy type-GDP tests. Using the test by Toda–Yamamoto in combination with a cointegration-based testing approach, we detect such cases of concordance for 92% of the countries in our sample of 65 countries. We infer that drawing specific economic conclusions with regard to single types of energy from bivariate causality analysis is difficult.     

Energy consumption,prices and economic growth in three SSA countries: A comparative study

In this paper we examine the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in three sub-Saharan African countries, namely South Africa, Kenya and Congo (DRC). We incorporate prices as an intermittent variable in a bivariate setting between energy consumption and economic growth—thereby creating a simple trivariate framework. Using the ARDL-bounds testing procedure, we find that the causality between energy consumption and economic growth varies significantly across the countries under study. The results show that for South Africa and Kenya there is a unidirectional causal flow from energy consumption to economic growth. However, for Congo (DRC) it is economic growth that drives energy consumption. These findings have important policy implications insofar as energy conservation policies are concerned. In the case of Congo (DRC), for example, the implementation of energy conservation policies may not significantly affect economic growth because the country's economy is not entirely energy dependent. However, for South Africa and Kenya there is a need for more energy supply augmentations in order to cope with the long-run energy demand. In the short-run, however, the two countries should explore more efficient and cost-effective sources of energy in order to address the energy dependency problem.