مصرف برق و رشد اقتصادی در هفت کشور آمریکای جنوبی

This paper attempts to investigate the causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth among seven South American countries, namely Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela using widely accepted time-series techniques for the period 1975–2006. The results indicate that the causal nexus between electricity consumption and economic growth varies across countries. There is a unidirectional, short-run causality from electricity consumption to real GDP for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, and Ecuador. This means that an increase in electricity consumption directly affects economic growth in those countries. In Venezuela, there is a bidirectional causality between electricity consumption and economic growth. This implies that an increase in electricity consumption directly affects economic growth and that economic growth also stimulates further electricity consumption in that country. However, no causal relationships exist in Peru. The documented evidence from seven South American countries can provide useful information for each government with regard to energy and growth policy.

In the past three decades, numerous studies have been conducted to examine the relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth. The overall findings show that there is a strong relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth. For example, Ferguson et al. (2000) have studied the issue in over one hundred countries, and found that, on the whole, there is a strong correlation between electricity consumption and economic growth. However, the fact that there exists a strong relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth does not necessarily imply a causal relationship. The relationship may very well run from electricity consumption to economic growth and/or from economic growth to electricity consumption. These causality issues, therefore, suggest the need for further research. A major question concerning this issue is which variable should take precedence over the other: is electricity consumption a stimulus for economic growth or does economic growth lead to electricity consumption? Although many studies have been conducted on causality issues related to electricity consumption and economic growth in several countries, case studies for South American countries cannot be found as far as we are concerned. South America occupies a large portion of the Western Hemisphere and comprises many different nations. Most South American countries plan to become advanced economies from being developing countries and public policy makers of those countries have shown a great deal of interest in the role that electricity consumption plays in economic growth. In these countries, the infrastructure for electricity is becoming an increasingly important component of the economy. This situation became more dominant as the weight of economic life in industrial economies increases. To proactively cope with the increased demand for electricity that accompanies rapid economic growth, South American countries should endeavor to uncover the causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth and to formulate appropriate electricity policies. The motivation and necessity of this paper can be illuminated from another angle. As primary industries such as agriculture, forestry, and raw material extraction take up relatively much of the weight in the industrial structures when compared with other more advanced countries, they try to turn to the industrial structure of advanced countries. In an effort to do so, they expand and improve basic infrastructural facilities, among which electricity holds a position of importance and essentiality. Consequently policy makers take an interest and establish political measures about it. For example, Argentina, Brazil, and Columbia are provided a loan from Inter-American Development Bank for projects targeted at building facilities to generate electricity. These projects can be regarded as the outcome of economic growth or instruments to reach the goal of economic growth. Thus, policy makers can set more efficient and effective policies by verifying the relationship between electricity and GDP. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate causality between electricity consumption and economic growth in South American countries, and to derive policy implications from the results. To this end, we choose major countries of South America and attempt to carefully consider causality issues by applying the time-series techniques of Granger causality to South American data. The methods adopted in the present study are as follows. First, stationarity and co-integration are tested. Then, if co-integration is detected, error-correction models are estimated; otherwise, the standard Granger causality method is executed. Finally, the F-test is performed to gauge the joint significance levels of causality between electricity consumption and economic growth. In the analysis, suitable information criteria are employed to select the optimum time-lag in lieu of an arbitrary choice of lag length. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. A review of the literature on causality studies of electricity consumption and economic growth is provided in Section 2. An overview of the methodology adopted here is presented in Section 3. Section 4 explains the data employed and reports the empirical findings. Some concluding remarks are made in the final section.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth for South American countries, and to derive policy implications from the results. To this end, causality tests have been performed using modern techniques in the time-series literature and adapted in a framework where both traditional and new channels of causality could be exposed. This study covered Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela for the period 1975–2006. In summary, time-series properties of the data were analyzed by way of unit-root and co-integration tests before the application of Granger causality tests. Several models were estimated to test for the direction of Granger causality. This paper has documented evidence from South American countries with regard to the causality between electricity consumption and economic growth as well as the direction of causality. These are the salient contributions of the paper. The main conclusion that emerges from the study is that the causal relationship between electricity consumption and real GDP is not uniform across countries. The results of the study show that unidirectional causality runs from electricity consumption to economic growth in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, and Ecuador without any feedback effect. Bidirectional causality holds and economic growth has a favorable impact on electricity consumption in Venezuela while there is no Granger causality effect in either direction in Peru. The observed cross-country diversity in the causal pattern is not at all unexpected. As energy consumption structures and economic policies differ across countries, it is natural to expect a certain degree of cross-country variation in the causal nexus between electricity consumption and economic growth. For example, Argentina, Brazil, and Columbia adopted a policy that applied for a loan from Inter-American Development Bank for projects targeted at building facilities to generate electricity. However, the other countries did not consider such a policy. One of the explanations for these heterogeneities can be the diversity of industrial structures among countries. There are some countries in which the percentage of heavy industry that requires a lot of electricity is high. In those countries electricity tends to Granger-cause economic growth. The absence of causal relationship from economic growth to electricity consumption in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, and Ecuador is understandable given that economic growth does not stimulate additional electricity consumption. Thus, a growth in real GDP is not responsible for a higher level of electricity consumption. Economic growth does not result in the expenditure of a greater proportion of real GDP on electricity consumption, and thus does not stimulate additional electricity consumption. However, the situation of Venezuela is opposite to those of five countries. The result of Venezuela can be interpreted as follows. With the advancement of the country's economy, there has been a rapid growth in electricity consumption in various sectors. Owing to their increased disposal income, households have come to consume progressively more electricity. Economic growth causes expansion in the industrial and commercial sectors where electricity has been used as a basic input. A high level of electricity consumption leads to a high level of real GDP in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. The electricity consumption is the initial receptor of an exogenous impact and the equilibrium is restored through adjustment in the real-income variable. This implies that a shortage in the infrastructure for electricity consumption may restrain economic growth in those countries.