مصرف انرژی و رشد اقتصادی: شواهد از کامرون

The aim of this paper is to study the nature of the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in Cameroon through a three-step approach: (i) Study the stationarity of the chronic, (ii) test of causality between variables and (iii) estimate the appropriate model. The study concludes in a non-stationarity of the series. Using the data in first difference, the Granger causality test yields a strong evidence for unidirectional causality running from OIL to GDP. Cointegration tests also show that these two series are co-integrated and the Error Correction Model (ECM) reveals that every percentage increase in Oil products consumption increases economic growth by around 1.1%. This result confirms the intuition that an economic policy aimed at improving energy supply will necessarily have a positive impact on economic growth. On the other side, a lack of energy is a major bottleneck for further economic development in Cameroon.

Works dealing with developmental issues from the field of energy can mainly be divided into three categories (Kanagawa and Nakata, 2008): • Descriptive studies (Aggarwal and Chandel, 2004, Bastakoti, 2003, Dung et al., 2003, Gangopadhyay et al., 2005 and Rehman et al., 2005) describe current situations of energy demand or consumption as well as policies and programs in developing countries. They also investigate critical components of the policy and programs, and evaluate the outcomes. Although they include various aspects of the policy and programs such as legal, social, and fiscal, most of these studies are quantitative evaluation, which are highly case-oriented, and it is difficult to obtain ideas applicable to other areas. • Experimental studies (Bhattacharyya, 2002, Chakrabarti and Chakrabarti, 2002 and Wijayatunga and Attalage, 2002) test technological or economic efficiency of devices or appliances in order to compare technologies adopted by rural households. They measure not only the data of energy demand, consumption, and expenditure but also emissions of hazardous pollutants, which cause indoor pollution. Although they contain highly disaggregated or highly precise data, policies implication to promote these technologies are not sufficiently discussed based on the results. • Analytical studies (Bailis et al., 2005, Biswas et al., 2001, Mathur et al., 2003, Pachauri et al., 2004 and Parikh and Ramanathan, 1999) analyze energy demand or consumption structure of a developing country, and apply an analytical tool to energy demand and supply structure at village, regional, and national level taking into account economic and technological parameters. They contain model analysis, which is divided into top-down and bottom-up modelling approaches. Moreover, they can incorporate emissions associated with energy consumption such as greenhouse gas emissions and government policies, for example, environmental tax. There are a large number of literatures for the descriptive and experimental studies. In contrast, there are a limited number of researches categorized as the analytical study (Kanagawa and Nakata, 2008). The work undertaken here could fit into this category. Our purpose is to examine the causal relationship between per capita energy consumption and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) for Cameroon. Estimating the relation between energy demand and GDP is an issue of high relevance for development and energy policies. Consider, for instance, that a government would like to introduce measures to control energy demand (say, an energy tax) to improve its environmental performance and reduce its dependence on foreign imports. If energy consumption precedes or causes economic growth, such policies would hamper further economic development (Keppler, 2006). Thus, the knowledge of causation between energy consumption and economic has significant policy implications. For example, if there is a causality running from energy consumption to income, then this denotes an energy-dependent economy such that energy is an impetus for income, implying that a shortage of energy may negatively affect income (Masih and Masih, 1998). In contrast, if unidirectional causality runs from income into energy consumption, it could imply that energy conservation policies might be implemented with little adverse or no effects on economic growth. However, the finding of no causality in either direction otherwise called “neutrality hypothesis” could imply that energy conservation policies do not affect economic growth (Akinlo, 2008). In this study, the methodology adopted is a three-step approach: The first step is to check the time series properties (stationarity and order of integration) using unit roots tests of Dickey and Fuller (1979) and Phillips and Perron (1988). In the second step, the Granger causality test is used on the stationary data, where stationarity is achieved by differencing the data since the series are integrated. Finally, in the presence of cointegration among the variables, an error correction model (ECM) is used instead of a vector autoregressive (VAR) model. This three-step approach was used by Ambapour and Massamba (2005), Keppler (2006) and Tamba et al. (2012). Before beginning the study of the series, let's make an overview on the preliminary work on the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption.

In this work, we proposed to study the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in Cameroon through a three-step approach: (i) Study the stationarity of the chronic, (ii) test of causality between variables and (iii) estimate the appropriate model. The study concludes in a non-stationarity of the series. Using the data in first difference, the Granger causality test yields a strong evidence for unidirectional causality running from OIL to GDP. Cointegration tests also show that these two series are co-integrated and the Error Correction Model (ECM) reveals that every percentage increase in oil products consumption increases economic growth by around 1.1%. This result confirms the intuition that an economic policy aimed at improving energy supply will necessarily have a positive impact on economic growth. On the other side, a lack of energy is a major bottleneck for further economic development in Cameroon. This result is confirmed by Tamba et al. (2012), who, analysing the causal relationship between diesel consumption and GDP in Cameroon over the period 1975–2008, concluded that an economic policy aimed at improving energy or diesel supply would inevitably have a positive impact on economic growth. Thus, implementing a policy restricting use of oil would hurt economic growth and development of Cameroon. Rather, Tamba et al. (2012) suggests that the policies relating to Energy in Cameroon should place priority on the discovery of new oil field and building capacity additions of the refinery to increase production of petroleum products, as this would propel the economic growth of the country. This unidirectional causality from oil products consumption to economic growth is probably due to the level of total primary energy supply (TPES) per capita (0.35 toe/capita) which is very low in comparison with the African average (0.67 toe/capita) and very far away from the average of the OECD countries (4.28 toe/capita). (IEA, 2013). Biofuels and waste which are non commercial energy represent 64.1% of this energy supply. Oil, the first commercial energy, counts for 27.2% of the TPES and is the only source of carbon dioxide emissions in Cameroon. That's why Greenhouse gas emissions of the country are low and can be maintained (in order to contribute to the world effort to fight climate change) if the increase of energy consumption is guaranteed by renewable energies such as hydropower. This seems to be the choice made by the authorities, because in its Growth and Employment Strategy Paper (GESP), the reference framework for Government action over the period 2010–2020, the construction of many energy infrastructures (Dams and hydropower plants) is projected. Thus, is it possible to meet the energy demand resulting from population growth and the necessary economic development under environmental stress? According to Fondja (2012), although it does not have a lot of environmental constraints, Cameroon should continue to develop hydropower, not only because of its great potential but also for its environmental virtues, in order to provide energy for households and businesses. The country should also continue the exploitation of Oil and Gas, and diversify its energy supply in order to benefit more from its renewable energy resources. To achieve this goal, it appears necessary to rearrange the regulatory and institutional framework in place so that it encourages more investments. These seem to be the conditions of any implementation of a sustainable energy system in Cameroon in order to support economic development.