دانلود مقاله ISI انگلیسی شماره 10973
ترجمه فارسی عنوان مقاله

مصرف انرژی و رشد اقتصادی: ارزیابی شواهد از یونان

عنوان انگلیسی
Energy consumption and economic growth: assessing the evidence from Greece
کد مقاله سال انتشار تعداد صفحات مقاله انگلیسی
10973 2002 18 صفحه PDF
منبع

Publisher : Elsevier - Science Direct (الزویر - ساینس دایرکت)

Journal : Energy Economics, Volume 24, Issue 4, July 2002, Pages 319–336

ترجمه کلمات کلیدی
- مصرف انرژی - رشد اقتصادی - علیت موقتی گرنجر
کلمات کلیدی انگلیسی
Energy consumption,Economic growth,Granger temporal causality
پیش نمایش مقاله
پیش نمایش مقاله  مصرف انرژی و رشد اقتصادی: ارزیابی شواهد از یونان

چکیده انگلیسی

This paper attempts to shed light into the empirical relationship between energy consumption and economic growth, for Greece (1960–1996) employing the vector error-correction model estimation. The vector specification includes energy consumption, real GDP and price developments, the latter taken to represent a measure of economic efficiency. The empirical evidence suggests that there is a long-run relationship between the three variables, supporting the endogeneity of energy consumption and real output. These findings have important policy implications, since the adoption of suitable structural policies aiming at improving economic efficiency can induce energy conservation without impeding economic growth.

مقدمه انگلیسی

The energy crises in the 1970s and the unprecedented high levels of energy prices, especially oil, which had a detrimental effect on growth, called for the implementation of energy conservation processes. Indeed, most of the industrialized countries managed to have gradually curtailed energy requirements. Since the end of the 1970s, there has been fairly extensive empirical research interest on the temporal causality between energy consumption and economic growth or employment, with neither conclusive results nor persuasive explanations. The research effort, very much facilitated by the ‘newly’ developed statistical techniques (e.g. Sim's test), aimed at investigating whether economic growth takes precedence over energy consumption or if energy consumption can boost economic growth. The advance of econometric techniques in recent years stimulated further empirical research on the energy consumption–economic growth debate, still with elusive results. As regards to policy issues, the question is whether the adoption of energy saving processes is a stimulus to growth or the opposite, the relevant literature referring to the possibility or feasibility for the adoption of energy saving processes. In this paper, we take a fresh look at the empirical evidence on the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption with a view of offering suggestions about how the issue may be addressed in future. We feel that the question of energy growth is more usefully analyzed if it is placed in a broader perspective, rather than within the partial consideration of energy conservation issues. The case of Greece, a medium size country, serves as an example in our empirical investigation and the conclusions drawn could be useful for the analysis of other medium-sized economies. The paper evaluates empirically the dynamic interaction between energy consumption, real output and the price level and tests for the endogeneity of these three variables included in the vector, utilizing the vector error-correction models (VECM) technique. The relevance of endogenous energy consumption is investigated and its dynamic response to structural shocks is estimated. Furthermore, the empirical analysis distinguishes between three categories of energy consumption: total; residential; and industrial energy consumption, all treated independently. The empirical results showed that total energy consumption is an endogenous variable also affecting economic growth. In addition, economic efficiency, as reflected in price developments, is a determining factor of both energy consumption and income behavior. The same applies to industrial energy consumption, while energy consumption for residential uses behaves independently of price and income developments. As regards to policy implications, policies aiming at improving economic efficiency via structural reforms (implementation of adjustment policies, enforcement of endogenous growth mechanisms) boost economic growth and result in lower energy requirements. At the same time, these policies induce energy conservation, positively affecting economic growth. Hence, structural policies are a stimulus to both economic growth and energy saving. This being the case, energy conservation does not impede economic growth. The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 briefly reviews previous empirical work on the relationship between energy requirements and growth, also considering the developments in Greece. Section 3 deals with methodological issues and the data used in the empirical analysis, while in Section 4 the empirical evidence is presented. Finally, in Section 5, the conclusions of the analysis are summarized and policy implications are discussed.

نتیجه گیری انگلیسی

In this paper, the interrelationship between economic growth, energy consumption and the price level is analyzed. Various categories of energy consumption changes and economic developments, such as income and prices, are explained in a temporal Granger causal framework, employing data for Greece. This is accomplished by examining the dynamic relationship between energy consumption changes and economic conditions in a multivariate cointegrated system. The evidence of cointegration between the three variables suggests they are bound together by common trends or that a long-run equilibrium condition exists. This implies that although the variables may exhibit occasional short-term or transitory deviations from their long-run equilibrium, eventually forces will prevail that will drive them together. In addition, the evidence of cointegration rules out the possibility that the estimated relationships are ‘spurious’, implying that Granger causality must exist among these variables either uni-directional or bi-directional. This suggests that although in the short-term some determinants may not be related to energy consumption changes, in the long run these variables are causally interrelated. The estimated cointegrating vector suggests that there is a causal relationship between energy consumption and GNP. This important finding of a long-run relationship is of major importance for policy designers. Furthermore, using vector error-correction model estimation, the direction of Granger causality, within-sample Granger exogeneity or endogeneity for each variable is detected, also distinguishing between short-term and long-term Granger causality. Our results indicate that total energy consumption changes should be considered as endogenous variables to inflation and to economic growth. The same applies to the consumption of energy in industrial uses. However, residential energy consumption is a weakly exogenous variable. In the short-run dynamics (Granger causality in the strict sense) the empirical results indicate that there is not a relationship among energy consumption, real output and prices, with the exception of a short-run relationship between total output and total energy consumption. In particular, the results suggest that in the short-run real output is affected by changes in total energy consumption and inflation. Furthermore, the use of strong exogeneity reveals the Granger endogeneity of energy consumption (with the exception of residential energy consumption) and economic growth. Our analysis indicates that in the case of Greece, total and industrial energy consumption are closely related to economic developments. On the contrary, residential energy consumption is exogenous to economic developments. In short, the results support the proposition of the endogeneity of energy consumption and economic growth and that these two variables are interrelated in Greece. In the long run, improvements in economic efficiency, stemming from productivity increases via the strengthening of endogenous growth mechanisms and the curtailment of economic imbalances, would promote economic growth, and consequently affect favorably energy consumption. At the same time, improvements in economic efficiency would activate energy conservation mechanisms, which in their turn would affect the growth process positively. As a result, efficiency induced energy saving should not pose impediments to long-run growth, since energy conservation and economic growth are closely interlinked, both being an integral part of the same process. This argument has important policy implications, calling for the adoption of a blend of structural reform and adjustment policies, aiming at increasing economic efficiency. This was the case of Greece over the 1990s. Thus, the implementation of structural policies through the Community Support Framework, together with the adoption of stabilization and liberalization policies (in line with the Greek Convergence Programme aiming at achieving the Maastricht criteria), has lead to substantial inflation reductions, has given an accelerating impetus to economic growth and lowered the, albeit high, energy requirements. On the contrary, the adoption of stop–go policies in the 1980s led to a sluggish development of economic activity, high inflation rates and relatively high energy requirements.18 A similar rationale applies to the industrial sector, which is greatly responsible for the achievement of economic growth due of its strong forward and backward linkages with the other sectors of the economy. In the case of Greece, the successful implementation of structural industrial policies along with macroeconomic restructuring policies in the 1990s, resulted in accelerating economic growth and industrial production rates and to a stabilization of energy consumption by industry. However, the failure of industrial policies in the 1980s and the prevalence of economic instability did not mobilize economic forces adequately. As regards to residential energy consumption, it follows an autonomous path which is independent of economic developments. It is mainly determined by long-run trends in wealth, by international trends and fashions, by consumption tastes and habits, which are not directly associated with fluctuations of economic activity. Finally, the results of our analysis have implications relating to the EU convergence process. The implementation by the Greek government of micro–macro structural policies, aiming at achieving convergence towards the other EU member states through the acceleration of GDP growth, gives rise to efficient energy consumption also reducing the high dependence of the economy to energy imports.