رابطه مصرف انرژی و رشد اقتصادی: شواهدی از داده های پانل برای کشورهای با درآمد کم و متوسط

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.

The topic of causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth has been well-studied in the energy economics literature for both developing and developed countries. The empirical outcomes of these studies have been varied and sometimes found to be conflicting due to the different time periods, different variables used, countries studied and different econometric methodologies used. The causality relationship between energy consumption and economic growth has important policy implications. Hence, several studies have attempted to establish the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth (See Table 1). A general observation from these studies is that the results have been mixed. From Table 1 it can be concluded that, almost all types of causality results have been reported in the literature (See Ozturk, 2010; for detailed literature survey on energy–growth nexus).According to the results of the mentioned studies in Table 1 and in energy literature, it is not possible to conclude definitely the direction of causality between energy consumption and economic growth. However, it is known that this causality is of major importance for effective energy policy design and implementation. A country that is energy dependent (a country in which causality runs from energy consumption to growth) will have a cautious energy policy because any negative shock on energy supply will have negative effects on economic growth. On the other hand, in an economy where energy consumption is determined by economic growth (a country in which the direction of causality runs from economic growth to energy consumption) an energy conservation policy will have very little affect on economic growth (Ouedraogo and Diarra, 2010). The present study may be considered as a complementary study to the previous studies about energy consumption–economic growth relationship. Different from previous studies, this study not only re-examine the weak relation between energy consumption and growth, but also examine the strong relation by using time series and panel data techniques. In addition to investigate weak or strong relation, panel causality test is applied to examine the relations between energy consumption and economic growth. Another contribution of this paper is to partially resolve the “lump-together” problem in using panel data; we classify the panel data into three sub-panels based on the difference in income levels before further estimation. Thus, this study extends the empirical literature on the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in the case of low income, lower middle income and upper middle income countries. The results obtained in this study are dependent on the sample period, the variables used and the methodology employed. The objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship and causality between energy consumption and economic growth in 51 countries for the 1971–2005 period by using Pedroni, 1999 and Pedroni, 2001 panel cointegration and panel causality method. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: the next section describes the data and methodology. Section. 3 presents the results from empirical analysis. Section. 4 concludes the paper.

There is a growing literature that examines the relationship between energy consumption and real GDP. The bulk of this literature focuses on developing, developed and emerging countries. It is important for policymakers to understand the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in order to design effective energy and environmental policies. A general conclusion from these studies is that there is no consensus either on the existence of the relationship or the direction of causality between energy consumption and economic growth in the literature. In this study, we use the panel data of energy consumption and GDP for 51 countries using annual data from 1971 to 2005. The countries studied are divided into three groups: low income group, lower middle income group and upper middle income group. The aim of this study is to investigate if there is relationship between energy consumption and real GDP, examine the causality between these variables and then show the significance of this relationship. A relationship between energy consumption and economic growth is investigated by employing Pedroni (1999) panel cointegration method. Then, we investigate whether or not strong relationship between energy consumption and economic growth holds by using Pedroni (2001) method. The empirical results of panel cointegration test show that energy consumption and GDP are cointegrated for all three income groups. In addition, panel causality test results reveal that there is a long-run Granger causality running from GDP to EC for low income countries and bidirectional Granger causality between EC and GDP for the lower middle and upper middle income countries. Finally, panel FMOLS and DOLS test results show that the estimated cointegration factor, β, is not close to 1. In other words, there is no strong relation between energy consumption and real GDP for the three income groups considered in the study. The empirical results of this study provide policymakers a better understanding of energy consumption–economic growth nexus to formulate energy policies in these countries. The examination of the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth has important policy implications. When energy consumption leads growth positively, it suggests that the benefit of energy use is greater than the externality cost of energy use. Conversely, if an increase in economic growth brings about an increase in energy consumption, the externality of energy use will set back economic growth. Under this circumstance, a conservation policy is necessary. As a policy implication, since there is no evidence indicating that energy consumption leads economic growth in any of the three income groups considered in this study, the policymakers should take into consideration the degree of economic growth in each country when energy consumption policy is formulated. The findings of this study have important policy implications and it shows that this issue still deserves further attention in future research. As a policy implication for future research on energy–growth relationship and causality, the authors may use multivariate models including new variables (such as: real gross fixed capital formation, labor force, carbon dioxide emissions etc.).