مصرف انرژی هسته ای، قیمت نفت و رشد اقتصادی: شواهد از کشورهای بسیار صنعتی

This study utilizes the Johansen cointegration technique, the Granger non-causality test of Toda and Yamamoto (1995), the generalized impulse response function, and the generalized forecast error variance decomposition to examine the dynamic interrelationship among nuclear energy consumption, real oil price, oil consumption, and real income in six highly industrialized countries for the period 1965–2008. Our empirical results indicate that the relationships between nuclear energy consumption and oil are as substitutes in the U.S. and Canada, while they are complementary in France, Japan, and the U.K. Second, the long-run income elasticity of nuclear energy is larger than one, indicating that nuclear energy is a luxury good. Third, the results of the Granger causality test find evidence of unidirectional causality running from real income to nuclear energy consumption in Japan. A bidirectional relationship appears in Canada, Germany and the U.K., while no causality exists in France and the U.S. We also find evidence of causality running from real oil price to nuclear energy consumption, except for the U.S., and causality running from oil consumption to nuclear energy consumption in Canada, Japan, and the U.K., suggesting that changes in price and consumption of oil influence nuclear energy consumption. Finally, the results observe transitory initial impacts of innovations in real income and oil consumption on nuclear energy consumption. In the long run the impact of real oil price is relatively larger compared with that of real income on nuclear energy consumption in Canada, Germany, Japan, and the U.S.

During the two energy crises in the 1970s, the price of oil doubled, even tripled in some countries, resulting in an increase of production cost and sharply reducing export competitiveness, which may have reduced imported-energy-dependent countries' economy performance and international competitiveness. Fossil fuels including coal, oil, and gas nowadays provide 85% of energy needs, and fossil-fuelled economic growth is the main factor for global warming through the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. In December 1997 the third session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Kyoto, Japan adopted the Kyoto Protocol. Annex I countries agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% from their 1990 level by 2008 to 2012. The U.S. President Obama's New Energy for America plans to reduce 10 million barrels of oil consumption per day by 2030 and to cut the country's collective greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from the 1990 level by 2050. To combat these energy and environmental configurations, one of the important priorities of energy and environmental policy is to diversify the sources of energy and to find a secure, cheap, and non-GHG-emitting energy supply (Fiore, 2006, Vaillancourt et al., 2008 and Wolde-Rufael, 2010). As noted by the International Energy Agency (IEA, 2008), nuclear energy may answer these conditions, as it reduces the instability of oil prices, the dependence on oil imports for many countries, and greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, nuclear energy (non-carbon energy) may be a crucial substitute energy for oil, and whether imported-energy-dependent countries can adopt nuclear energy to replace the majority of fossil fuels in their economy has become an important issue. Based on the factors above, this study employs extensive tests from a multivariate model to investigate the relationship among nuclear energy consumption, oil price, oil consumption, and real income. We extend the existing energy consumption literature to nuclear energy. Furthermore, this study examines if there is the same pattern to countries that are highly industrialized and have a similar level of economic development, and goes on to investigate if these countries have different impacts from oil price fluctuations on nuclear energy consumption. While the drivers behind different types of energy consumption (i.e. electricity, oil, coal, etc.) have been well studied, relatively little is known about the drivers behind nuclear energy consumption (i.e. Schurr, 1983, Yoo & Jung, 2005, Yoo & Ku, 2009, Apergis & Payne, 2010, Menyah & Wolde-Rufael, 2010, Wolde-Rufael, 2010, Wolde-Rufael & Menyah, 2010, Heo et al., in press, Payne & Taylor, in press and Wolde-Rufael, in press). Nonetheless, the existing empirical studies on the nuclear energy-income nexus suggest conflicting conclusions. One problem may be that most of them suffer from the omission variable bias. The bivariate models with energy consumption and real income may be biased and “unfortunately blurry” due to the omission of other variables such as another substitute energy. To improve the problem of the omission variable bias and based on the production function, Apergis & Payne, 2010, Wolde-Rufael, 2010, Wolde-Rufael & Menyah, 2010, Payne & Taylor, in press and Wolde-Rufael, in press incorporate capital and labor inputs to examine the causal relationship between nuclear energy consumption and economic growth. However, none of the existing studies on nuclear energy investigate the impacts from oil price and oil consumption changes on nuclear energy development under international crude oil price hikes and oil supply shortages. The purposes and contributions of this study are as follows. First, we control for real oil price and oil consumption, estimate the cross-price elasticity of nuclear energy with respect to oil, and then analyze whether a substitute or complementary relationship between nuclear energy and oil exists.1 Second, this study is the first one utilizing a model with nuclear energy consumption as a dependent variable to examine the income elasticity of nuclear energy consumption and to analyze the impact of the policy for stimulating economic growth on nuclear energy development. Third, most studies on nuclear energy consumption focus on the causal relationship between nuclear energy consumption and real income, and thus they cannot find a dynamic relationship between them.2 To fill this gap, we employ the generalized impulse response function (GIRF) and the generalized forecast error variance decompositions (GVDC) to explore the dynamic relationship among nuclear energy consumption, real oil price, oil consumption, and real income. Fourth, this study applies the samples of six highly industrialized countries (G-6 countries), which play a critical role in the global economy, and thus our motivation appears meaningful. The estimated results for these highly industrialized countries provide the direction for the future nuclear energy progress of the developing countries. The remainder of the study is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews previous research in the empirical literature. Section 3 introduces the Toda and Yamamoto (1995, TY) Granger non-causality test, and the GIRF and GVDC of Koop et al., 1996 and Pesaran & Shin, 1998. Section 4 shows the variables' definitions, data sources, and the empirical results. Section 5 offers the conclusion.

To cope with international crude oil prices' upsurge and oil supply shortages and to conform with the Kyoto Protocol, countries should look for a substitute energy that has stable prices and supplies as well as is carbon free to replace oil. One such substitute, which fits these conditions, is nuclear energy. Therefore, one important emerging issue of energy consumption and economic development is “whether nuclear energy could replace oil and become an important factor for countries' industrialization in the future”. Many studies in the existing literature may suffer from the omission variable bias. To improve any rise to this potential bias, in addition to real income this study also incorporates real oil price and oil consumption into our nuclear energy equation. We utilize the Johansen cointegration technique, the TY (1995) Granger non-causality test, the generalized impulse response function, and the generalized forecast error variance decomposition to investigate the dynamic interrelationship among nuclear energy consumption, real oil price, oil consumption, and real income in six highly industrialized countries for the period 1965–2008. Several conclusions emerge from the present study. First, our empirical results indicate that nuclear energy consumption, real oil price, oil consumption, and real income are cointegrated, implying the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship among these variables. In the U.S. and Canada, the long-run cross-price elasticity of nuclear energy demand with respect to oil is significantly positive, suggesting the existence of a substitute relationship between nuclear energy and oil. A policy implication emerges that U.S. and Canada governments can develop nuclear energy to replace their oil demand, and thus President Obama's New Energy policy, which is to reduce 10 million barrels of oil consumption per day by 2030, can be fulfilled. In France, Japan, and the U.K., the cross-price elasticities of nuclear energy demand with respect to oil indicate that nuclear energy and oil consumptions have a complementary effect. Thus, we cannot conclude the nuclear energy-oil nexus is substitute or complementary. Furthermore, the income elasticity of nuclear energy demand is significantly positive, implying that industrialized countries will increase nuclear energy demand as their income rises. Overall, nuclear energy demand in these countries is affected not only by growth in real income, but also by oil price and oil consumption. Second, the causality between nuclear energy consumption and real income is not uniform across countries, which is consistent with the view of Yoo & Ku, 2009 and Wolde-Rufael & Menyah, 2010. The results indicate evidence of unidirectional causality running from economic growth to nuclear energy consumption in Japan, implying that nuclear energy conservation may not retard economic growth in these two countries. There is a bidirectional relationship between nuclear energy consumption and real income in Canada, Germany and the U.K., while no causality exists between nuclear consumption and real income in France and the U.S. Furthermore, except for the U.S., we find evidence of causality running from real oil price to nuclear energy consumption, meaning that oil price increases have significant impacts on nuclear energy development in industrialized countries. Evidence of unidirectional causality running from oil consumption to nuclear energy consumption is found in Canada, Japan, and the U.K., implying that oil supply shortages may lead to nuclear energy proliferation in these countries. Third, the results of the GIRF show that an initial shock in real income has a significantly negative impact on nuclear energy consumption in the U.K. The unanticipated increase in real income leads to a statistically significant decline in nuclear energy consumption in the second year in Japan. A shock from real oil price on nuclear energy consumption is statistically insignificant, supposing that countries are not able to enhance nuclear energy immediately when the oil price instigates shocks in the short run. Fourth, the results of the GVDC demonstrate that nuclear energy consumption is predominantly explained by itself, which is consistent with Wolde-Rufael (2010). For all G6 countries, the impact of real oil price on nuclear energy consumption in the long run is larger than in the short run, implying that in the long run there is a relatively large impact of international crude oil price upsurge on nuclear energy development in industrialized countries. Furthermore, the impact of real oil price is relatively larger compared with that of real income on nuclear energy consumption in Canada, Germany, Japan, and the U.S. in the long run. In France, Germany, and Japan the shock of oil price on nuclear energy is higher than that of nuclear energy on oil price, implying the impact of increasing oil prices on nuclear energy development in these countries.