The Nexus of CO2 Emissions, Energy Consumption, Economic Growth, and Trade-Openness in WTO Countries

This paper analyzes the dynamic relationship between CO2 emissions, energy consumption, GDP, and trade-openness from 1971 to 2013, based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for 70 WTO countries. Using recently developed secondgeneration panel data methods, the empirical results support the EKC hypothesis for the high-, middle-, and lower-income panels used. Concerning the energy consumption and economic growth nexus, the causality results support the conversion hypothesis for the high-income panel, whereas the neutrality hypothesis holds for the lower- and middle-income panels. Based on the causality results, trade-openness does not positively impact CO2 emissions, GDP leads CO2 emissions, and trade-openness causes energy consumption within any income panel. The net effect of economic growth, however, could help to stabilize future CO2 emissions within any income panel

Fossil energy in economic growth: A study of the energy direction of technical change, 1950-2012

Climate change mitigation challenges national economies to increase productivity while reducing fossil energy consumption. Fossil energy-saving technical change has been assumed to accomplish this, yet empirical evidence is scarce. This paper investigates the long-run relationship between the rate and direction of technical change with respect to fossil energy and labor in the world economy. Growth rates of labor productivity and the fossil energy-labor ratio are examined for more than 95 of world output between 1950 and 2012. The average elasticity of the energy-labor ratio with respect to labor productivity is close to one, implying highly energy-using technical change, but no trade-o between factor productivity growth rates. This stylized fact suggests the importance of a cheap, abundant energy supply for robust global growth, and a more important role for renewable energy. Integrated assessment models do not incorporate this restriction which may result in poorly speci ed baseline scenarios

Price and income elasticities of residential and industrial electricity demand in the European Union

This study examines the short- and long-run price and income elasticities of residential and industrial electricity demand in the European Union between 1996 and 2016. Instrumental variable models using the between estimator, as well as dynamic panel models are employed to present robust estimates, and to assess the impact of different methodologies on the reported elasticities. The long-run price elasticity of residential electricity consumption is estimated between −0.53 and −0.56. These elasticities are more inelastic than that of industrial electricity use, which is reported between −0.75 and −1.01. The choice of different econometric methodologies has only moderate impact on the estimates. While long-run residential income elasticity estimates are moderately inelastic and estimated around 0.61, industrial electricity use tends to be closely tied to income, with elasticities between 0.76 and 1.08. Electricity demand in all sectors is highly price and income inelastic in the short run. Additionally, population density, temperatures, and policy measures also influence sectoral electricity use. The above estimates can aid the design of European energy and environmental policy

Global energy use: Decoupling or convergence?

We examine the key factors driving change in energy use globally over the past four decades. We test for both strong decoupling where economic growth has less effect on energy use as income increases, and weak decoupling where energy use declines overtime in richer countries, ceteris paribus. Our econometric approach is robust to the presence of unit roots, unobserved time effects, and spatial effects. Our key findings are that the growth of per capita energy use has been primarily driven by economic growth, convergence in energy intensity, and weak decoupling. There is no sign of strong decoupling

Technology Choices in the U.S. Electricity Industry before and after Market Restructuring

We study the drivers of the adoption of electricity generation technologies be- tween 1970 and 2014 in the lower 48 U.S. states. Since the 1990s, major electricity market restructuring took place in some parts of the United States. We explore the implications of changing from a regulated "cost-of-service", or rate of return, system to liberalized wholesale electricity markets on technology and fuel choices. We find that wholesale market restructuring resulted in significant immediate in- vestment in various natural gas technologies due to higher expected profits, and a reduction in coal investments. In states that adopted liberalized wholesale electricity markets, higher natural gas price expectations resulted in more investment in coal and renewable technologies, while higher coal price expectations resulted in lower coal-fired baseload power investments. Natural gas price expectations, therefore, have the potential to significantly shape the power generation landscape of the future