Energy Consumption and Economic Growth in Pakistan: A Sectoral Analysis

Abstract

The study aimed at investigating the relationship between energy consumption at aggregate and disaggregate levels i.e., oil, coal, gas and electricity in different sectors (commercial, agriculture, industry, power and transport) of the economy with the economic growth in Pakistan. Annual time series data for the time period ranging from 1972 to 2014 has been used in this study. Autoregressive distributed lag bound testing approach for cointegration and to find the relationship between variables Granger causality test is applied. The results of the study showed that there exists a long run relationship between the dependent variable (economic growth) and independent variables (aggregate and disaggregate oil, coal, gas and electricity consumption in different sectors). It is also found that there exists a Neutrality Hypothesis between aggregate and disaggregate oil consumption and Conservation Hypothesis is found in aggregate and disaggregate coal, gas and electricity consumption. This study recommends that government should increase job opportunities in industrial sector where oil is used for production, shift their burden to cheap available resource from coal and transfer the units of electricity to industrial sector so that economic growth of Pakistan can be enhanced