بررسی رابطه مصرف برق، رشد اقتصادی، قیمت انرژی و نوآوری فناوری در مالزی

This study principally attempts to investigate the relationship between electricity consumption on the one hand and economic growth, energy prices and technology innovation in Malaysia on the other over the period, 1970–2009. The results of this study indicate that electricity consumption and its determinants are cointegrated. Specifically, the empirical results show that income positively affects electricity consumption, while energy prices and technology innovation negatively affect it in Malaysia over a long run. The Granger causality results reveal that technology innovation Granger-cause economic growth and electricity consumption in Malaysia. Moreover, we find that electricity consumption and economic growth Granger-cause each other both in the short and in the long run. Therefore, policymakers should increase investment in electricity infrastructure to ensure that electricity supply is sufficient for economic growth and development and at the same time encourage technology innovation to minimise the usage of fossil fuels. This could strike a balance between environmental quality and economic growth in Malaysia.

Over the past decades, many empirical studies on energy-growth nexus have been published. Generally, they all involved the use of conventional variables with mere changes in the data span. Karanfil [1] emphasised that changing the data span is an insufficient contribution to literatures and effective policymaking. Ozturk [2] and Payne [3] highlighted that omission of relevant variable(s) and methodological flaws are two major factors that cause conflicting estimation results. Instead of using a bi-variate model, research on the energy-growth nexus should consider other potential variable(s) that affect energy consumption and economic growth. In addition, more robust econometric approaches should be employed to reduce the possibility of producing inaccurate results. Karanfil [1] and Ozturk [2] suggested that the fairly new bounds testing approach to cointegration should be used to avoid conflicting and unrealistic results for policymaking. Motivated by the above studies, the goal of this study is to re-investigate the electricity-growth nexus in Malaysia by accommodating technology innovation as a new control variable. To the best of our knowledge, technology innovation has not been considered by other electricity-growth studies, particularly in the case of Malaysia. Technology innovation could stimulate long-term economic growth as emphasised by the neoclassical and the endogenous growth theories [4] and [5]. More green energy and energy savings products could also be created through technology innovation. Greater technology innovation could reduce fossil fuel consumption which in turn leads to a better quality of the environment and economic growth. In this context, technology innovation is considered a very important variable affecting energy consumption and its relationship with economic growth. Malaysia is the choice of this study because of its impressive economic growth record, with rapid development in the information and communication technologies (ICTs) and other infrastructures that require large inputs of electricity [6] and [7]. Since 1980s, Malaysia has been one of the popular destinations of foreign direct investment (FDI). Such influx of FDI has brought about large volumes of technology transfer to Malaysia because FDI is a main channel of foreign technology transfer. Therefore, it is important to investigate the relationship between electricity consumption, economic growth, energy prices, and technology innovation in Malaysia. This study employs a set of econometric techniques to achieve the objective of this study. First, apart from using the standard Phillips–Perron (PP) and Kwiatkowski–Phillips–Schmidt–Shin (KPSS) unit root tests, we also apply the Zivot and Andrews [8] and Narayan and Popp [9] unit root tests with one and two structural breaks to verify the order of integration of each series. This is because according to Perron [10], standard unit root tests have low power when there are structural breaks in the data series. On the basis of Monte Carlo experiments, Narayan and Popp [11] found that the two-break unit root test proposed by Narayan and Popp [9] has better size and power than the other unit root tests (e.g. [12] and [13]). Second, we follow the recommendations of Karanfil [1] and Ozturk [2] in using the bounds testing approach to cointegration to examine the presence of a long run equilibrium relationship between electricity consumption and its determinants in Malaysia. This approach is superior for small samples and is able to handle variables with mixed orders of integration. Finally, the Granger causality test will be conducted within an error-correction model (ECM) to ascertain the direction of causality among electricity consumption, economic growth, energy prices, and technology innovation in Malaysia to yield valuable lessons for future policy direction. One of the advantages of using the ECM-based Granger causality test is that it allows us to differentiate between short and long run causal relationships, if any. The rest of this paper will be organised as follows. A concise review of the power sector in Malaysia is presented in the next section. Section 3 then discusses the past empirical studies on Malaysia and Section 4 will describe the methodology used in this study. The empirical results will be discussed in Section 5. Finally, Section 6 will present the conclusion and policy recommendations.

This study attempts to analyse the energy-growth nexus in Malaysia using annual data from 1970 to 2009. Unlike the earlier studies on this subject, we contribute to the existing literature by including technology innovation in the energy-growth relationship in order to enhance the robustness and reliability of estimates. This study uses the bounds testing approach to cointegration to examine the presence of a long run equilibrium relationship between electricity consumption, real income, energy prices and technology innovation in Malaysia. The Granger causality test is then applied to examine the direction of causality between the variables of interest. We find that electricity consumption and its determinants are cointegrated in Malaysia. In the long run, real income positively contributes to electricity consumption, while energy prices and technology innovation negatively influence electricity consumption in Malaysia. The negative effect of technology innovation on electricity consumption implies that products of research and development (R&D) could contribute to efficient utilisation of electricity in Malaysia. In addition, we also find that electricity consumption has a bi-directional Granger causality with economic growth, energy prices and technology innovation in the short and in the long run. With these findings, we are clear that Malaysia is an energy-dependent country. Hence energy conservation policies will adversely affect its process of economic growth and development unless there is sufficient technology innovation. Though these results are consistent with some of the earlier studies on Malaysia, this study is more conclusive as it factors in the potentially important role technological innovation in the energy consumption-economic growth nexus apart from the use of more sophisticated econometric techniques. At least two important policies recommendations can be drawn from the findings of this study. First, as the Ganger causality test results suggest that causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth is bi-directional, Malaysia needs to strike a balance between environmental protection and economic growth. While the government should increase investment in electricity infrastructure to enhance power supply for generating economic growth, it should also implement electricity conservation policies to reduce inefficiency or unnecessary wastage of electricity consumption. Over the past decades, a series of energy policies have been implemented by the Malaysian government to promote efficient utilisation of energy and to minimise the wastage. Among them are the National Energy Policy in 1979, the National Depletion Policy in 1980 and the Four-Fuel Diversification Policy in 1981 and 1999. Second, in order to make these policies more effective, policymakers should encourage technology innovation in areas of green energy and energy savings products as our results show that technology innovation negatively influences electricity consumption and Granger-causes economic growth. Therefore, technology innovation could simultaneously boost long-term economic growth and minimise environmental degradation. The consumption of fossil fuels could be reduced without slowing down the process of economic growth. In fact the New Economic Model (NEM) of Malaysia which was launched in 2011 underscores the need for the country to pursue green growth and development in the quest for attaining the status of a high-income nation. Currently by World Bank’s classification, Malaysia is only an upper middle-income economy (UMC). The NEM sets out plans for Malaysia to adopt the “Polluter Pays” principle in order to preserve the environment and to rationalise subsidies and removal of price controls on energy so that producers and consumers are forced to pay a price closer to the social cost of energy consumption. It is envisaged that this will encourage the adoption of renewable and green technologies.