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.     

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

This study examines the relationship between coal consumption and economic growth for 25 OECD countries within a multivariate panel framework over period 1980–2005. The Larsson et al. (2001) panel cointegration test indicates there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between real GDP, coal consumption, real gross fixed capital formation, and the labor force. The respective coefficients for real gross fixed capital formation and the labor force are positive and statistically significant whereas the coefficient for coal consumption is negative and statistically significant. The results of the panel vector error correction model reveal bidirectional causality between coal consumption and economic growth in both the short- and long-run; however, the bidirectional causality in the short-run is negative.     

The renewable energy consumption–growth nexus in Central America

This study examines the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth for a panel of six Central American countries over the period 1980–2006. 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 results from the panel error correction model indicate bidirectional causality between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in both the short- and long-run.     

Natural gas consumption and economic growth: A panel investigation of 67 countries

This study examines the relationship between natural gas consumption and economic growth for a panel of 67 countries within a multivariate framework over the period 1992–2005. Pedroni’s 24 and 26 heterogeneous panel cointegration test reveals there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between real GDP, natural gas consumption, real gross fixed capital formation, and the labor force. The results of the panel vector error correction model reveal bidirectional causality between natural gas consumption and economic growth in both the short- and long-run.     

Panel estimation for CO2 emissions,energy consumption,economic growth,trade openness and urbanization of newly industrialized countries

This paper empirically examines the dynamic causal relationships between carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, economic growth, trade openness and urbanization for the panel of newly industrialized countries (NIC) using the time series data for the period 1971–2007. Using four different panel unit root tests it is found that all panel variables are integrated of order 1. From the Johansen Fisher panel cointegration test it is found that there is a cointegration vector among the variables. The Granger causality test results support that there is no evidence of long-run causal relationship, but there is unidirectional short-run causal relationship from economic growth and trade openness to carbon dioxide emissions, from economic growth to energy consumption, from trade openness to economic growth, from urbanization to economic growth and from trade openness to urbanization. It is found that the long-run elasticity of carbon dioxide emissions with respect to energy consumption (1.2189) is higher than short run elasticity of 0.5984. This indicates that over time higher energy consumption in the newly industrialized countries gives rise to more carbon dioxide emissions as a result our environment will be polluted more. But in respect of economic growth, trade openness and urbanization the environmental quality is found to be normal good in the long-run.     

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.     

Renewable energy consumption and economic growth in newly industrialized countries: Evidence from asymmetric causality test

In this study, the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in newly industrialized countries is examined for the period from 1971 to 2011. In previous studies, the causal relationship between variables was performed by the validity of the assumption of positive shocks. This study employs the asymmetric causality approach to investigate the relationship between positive and negative shocks of variables. The results reveal that negative shocks in renewable energy consumption causes positive shocks in real GDP for South Africa and Mexico; negative shocks in renewable energy consumption causes negative shocks in real GDP for India. In addition, the neutrality hypothesis is confirmed for Brazil and Malaysia.     

Output,renewable and non-renewable energy consumption and international trade: Evidence from a panel of 69 countries

This paper uses panel cointegration techniques to examine the causal relationship between output, renewable and non-renewable energy consumption, and international trade for a sample of 69 countries during the period 1980–2010. In the short-run, Granger causality tests show that there is a bidirectional causality between output and trade (exports or imports), a bidirectional causality between non-renewable energy and trade, and a one way causality running from renewable energy to trade. In the long-run, a bidirectional causality between renewable energy and trade, is noticed. Our long-run ordinary least squares (OLS), fully modified OLS (FMOLS) and dynamic OLS (DOLS) estimates suggest that renewable, non-renewable energy consumption and trade have a positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth. Our energy policy recommendations are the following: i) any non-renewable energy policy should take into account the importance of international trade, ii) more renewable energy use should be encouraged by national and international competent authorities in order to increase international economic exchanges and promote economic growth without harming the environment, and iii) increasing trade is a good vehicle for renewable energy technology transfer and contributes to increase renewable energy consumption in the long-run, thus contributing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.     

Renewable energy consumption and income in emerging economies

Increased economic growth and demand for energy in emerging economies is creating an opportunity for these countries to increase their usage of renewable energy. This paper presents and estimates two empirical models of renewable energy consumption and income for a panel of emerging economies. Panel cointegration estimates show that increases in real per capita income have a positive and statistically significant impact on per capita renewable energy consumption. In the long term, a 1% increase in real income per capita increases the consumption of renewable energy per capita in emerging economies by approximately 3.5%. Long-term renewable energy per capita consumption price elasticity estimates are approximately equal to −0.70.     

The causal dynamics between coal consumption and growth: Evidence from emerging market economies

This study examines the relationship between coal consumption and economic growth for 15 emerging market economies within a multivariate panel framework over the period 1980–2006. The heterogeneous panel cointegration results indicate there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between real GDP, coal consumption, real gross fixed capital formation, and the labor force. While in the long-run both real gross fixed capital formation and the labor force have a significant positive impact on real GDP, coal consumption has a significant negative impact. The panel causality tests show bidirectional causality between coal consumption and economic growth in both the short- and long-run.     

Human capital and energy consumption: Evidence from OECD countries

We examine the effect of human capital on energy consumption for a panel of OECD economies over the period 1965–2014. Our preferred results, which account for cross-sectional dependence and structural breaks, suggest that a one standard deviation increase in human capital reduces aggregate energy consumption by 15.36%. When we distinguish between clean and dirty energy consumption, we find that human capital generates significant positive externalities for the environment. Specifically, we find that a one standard deviation increase in human capital is associated with a 17.33% decrease in dirty energy consumption and an 85.54% increase in clean energy consumption. Our findings reinforce the social benefits of investing in human capital and suggest a promising avenue for energy conservation without impeding economic growth.     

Oil prices,nuclear energy consumption,and economic growth: New evidence using a heterogeneous panel analysis

This paper applies panel data analysis to examine the short-run dynamics and long-run equilibrium relationships among nuclear energy consumption, oil prices, oil consumption, and economic growth for developed countries covering the period 1971–2006. The panel cointegration results show that in the long run, oil prices have a positive impact on nuclear energy consumption, suggesting the existence of the substitution relationship between nuclear energy and oil. The long-run elasticity of nuclear energy with respect to real income is approximately 0.89, and real income has a greater impact on nuclear energy than do oil prices in the long run. Furthermore, the panel causality results find evidence of unidirectional causality running from oil prices and economic growth to nuclear energy consumption in the long run, while there is no causality between nuclear energy consumption and economic growth in the short run.     

Energy consumption and economic growth: The case of oil exporting countries

This paper examines the causal relationship between the per capita energy consumption and the per capita GDP in a panel of 11 selected oil exporting countries by using panel unit-root tests and panel cointegration analysis. The results show a unidirectional strong causality from economic growth to energy consumption for the oil exporting countries. The findings have practical policy implications for decision makers in the area of macroeconomic planning. In most major oil exporting countries, government policies keep domestic prices bellow free market level, resulting in high levels of domestic energy consumption. The results imply that the energy conservation through reforming energy price policies has no damaging repercussions on economic growth for this group of countries.     

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.     

Energy consumption and economic growth relationship: Evidence from panel data for low and middle income countries

This paper uses the panel data of energy consumption (EC) and economic growth (GDP) for 51 countries from 1971 to 2005. These countries are divided into three groups: low income group, lower middle income group and upper middle income group countries. Firstly, a relationship between energy consumption and economic growth is investigated by employing Pedroni (1999) panel cointegration method. Secondly, panel causality test is applied to investigate the way of causality between the energy consumption and economic growth. Finally, we test whether there is a strong or weak relationship between these variables by using Pedroni (2001) method. The empirical results of this study are as follows: i) Energy consumption and GDP are cointegrated for all three income group countries. ii) The panel causality test results reveal that there is long-run Granger causality running from GDP to EC for low income countries and there is bidirectional causality between EC and GDP for middle income countries. iii) The estimated cointegration factor, β, is not close to 1. In other words, no strong relation is found between energy consumption and economic growth for all income groups considered in this study. The findings of this study have important policy implications and it shows that this issue still deserves further attention in future research.     

Threshold effect of the economic growth rate on the renewable energy development from a change in energy price: Evidence from OECD countries

This paper uses a panel threshold regression (PTR) model to investigate the influence that energy prices have on renewable energy development under different economic growth rate regimes. The empirical data are obtained from each of the OECD member-countries over the period from 1997 to 2006. We show that there is one threshold in the regression relationship, which is 4.13% of a one-period lag in the annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate. The consumer price index (CPI), in so far as it relates to variations in energy, is significantly positively correlated with the contribution of renewables to energy supply in the regime with higher-economic growth, but there is no relationship in the regime with lower economic growth. Therefore, countries characterized by high-economic growth are able to respond to high energy prices with increases in renewable energy use, while countries characterized by low-economic growth countries tend to be unresponsive to energy price changes when they come to their level of renewable energy.     

Are fluctuations in coal consumption transitory or permanent? Evidence from a panel of US states

This short communication investigates whether or not US coal consumption follows a stationary process by examining coal consumption for the 50 US states over the period 1982–2007. Employing several panel unit root and stationarity tests with endogenously determined structural breaks, the results indicate that coal consumption is integrated of order zero. Thus, energy conservation policies oriented towards the reduction of coal consumption will only have short-term effects.     

Non-renewable and renewable energy consumption and CO2 emissions in OECD countries: A comparative analysis

This paper attempts to explore the determinants of CO₂ emissions using the STIRPAT model and data from 1980 to 2011 for OECD countries. The empirical results show that non-renewable energy consumption increases CO₂ emissions, whereas renewable energy consumption decreases CO₂ emissions. Further, the results support the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve between urbanisation and CO₂ emissions, implying that at higher levels of urbanisation, the environmental impact decreases. Therefore, the overall evidence suggests that policy makers should focus on urban planning as well as clean energy development to make substantial contributions to both reducing non-renewable energy use and mitigating climate change.     

Are shocks to natural gas consumption temporary or permanent? Evidence from a panel of U.S. states

This short communication examines whether or not U.S. natural gas consumption follows a stationary process. Unlike previous research that has focused on regional country or industrial sector-based panel studies, this study undertakes a sub-national investigation of natural gas consumption for the 50 U.S. states. Levin et al. (2002), Im et al. (2003), Maddala and Wu (1999), and Hadri (2000) panel unit root and stationarity tests reveal that natural gas consumption is integrated of order one. However, once allowance is made for endogenously determined structural breaks, the Carrion-i-Silvestre et al. (2005), Im et al. (2005), and Westerlund (2005) panel unit root and stationarity tests indicate that natural gas consumption is integrated of order zero. Discussion of the structural breaks is briefly surveyed in relation to the natural gas industry’s response to legislative actions.     

Oil Consumption and Economic Growth: Evidence from Korea

This article investigates the short- and long-run causality issues between oil consumption and economic growth in Korea by applying modern time-series techniques. It employs annual data covering the period 1968–2002. Tests for unit roots, cointegration, and a Granger-causality based on error-correction model are presented. The results show that bidirectional causality runs from oil consumption to economic growth in Korea. This means that an increase in oil consumption directly affects economic growth and that economic growth also stimulates further oil consumption.