scholarly journals Renewable Energy Demand, Financial Reforms and Environmental Quality in West Africa

Author(s):  
Bright Obuobi ◽  
Yifeng Zhang ◽  
Emmanuel Nketiah ◽  
Gibbson Adu-Gyamfi ◽  
Dan Cudjoe

Abstract Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-7) stipulates the need for clean energy, reduced carbon emissions, prevention of environmental degradation, promotion of biodiversity, and ecosystem preservation. Towards achieving these goals, this study provides new evidence on the causal link between renewable energy demand, financial reforms, economic growth, foreign direct investment, and environmental quality among emerging West African economies. The study adopted the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares, Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares, Pooled Mean group estimation and Granger causality test for its analysis. It was found that renewable energy demand has been favorable to the environmental health of West African economies. Also, financial reforms made within the region contributed to increasing the ecological footprints of the region. Direct investments from foreign companies showed encouraging results as it improves the environment quality. We also found a unidirectional causality from ecological footprints to renewable energy demand and financial reforms but a bidirectional relationship with economic growth and foreign direct investment. Moreover, it was evident that ecological footprints granger causes financial reforms and economic growth but not vice versa. Policy recommendations outlined encourages governments and policy-makers to embark on intensive clean energy technologies and effective green financial reforms to help achieve Sustainable Development Goals.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhou Lu ◽  
Mantu Kumar Mahalik ◽  
Hemachandra Padhan ◽  
Monika Gupta ◽  
Giray Gozgor

This paper examines the effects of age dependency ratio (the young age, old-age and overall age) and urbanization on renewable and non-renewable energy consumption in Brazil, India, China, and South Africa, considering the panel data from 1990 to 2019. We control economic growth and foreign direct investment inflows as key factors in the energy demand function using the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology approach. Empirical analysis has been implemented using the Kernel Regularized Least Squares machine learning method to solve possible classification problems in the traditional regressions without relying on the linearity assumption. It is observed that the young age dependency, overall age dependency, and urbanization negatively affect both renewable and non-renewable energy demand. On the contrary, old-age dependency and economic growth are positively associated with renewable and non-renewable energy demand. The mixed effects of foreign direct investment inflows on renewable and non-renewable energy demand patterns are also found. Thus, the findings suggest that environment policymakers in the BRICS economies should prioritize urbanization, young age, and overall age population to improve energy efficiency.


Author(s):  
Modou Diouf ◽  
Yun Liu Hai

Globalization of capital and especially foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade has increased dramatically over the past decades. In developing economies; FDI has become the most stable and largest component of capital flows. This study examines the interaction between FDI, trade openness and economic growth with a focus on Asian FDI, trade and 13 West African countries for the period 1980-2015. The results from weighted Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) show that both FDI and trade significantly contribute to economic growth. The study also indicates that a unidirectional causality runs from FDI to economic growth indicating FDI-growth-led hypothesis while a bidirectional causality is detected between trade and economic growth validating feedback-effect. Increasing FDI could also promote trade by opening and expanding market opportunities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1613
Author(s):  
Lian Xue ◽  
Mohammad Haseeb ◽  
Haider Mahmood ◽  
Tarek Tawfik Yousef Alkhateeb ◽  
Muntasir Murshed

Fossil fuel-dependency has induced a trade-off between economic growth and environmental degradation across the developing nations in particular. Against this backdrop, this study aims to evaluate the impacts of renewable energy use on the ecological footprints in the context of four South Asian fossil fuel-dependent nations: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The econometric analysis involves the use of recently developed methods that account for cross-sectional dependency, slope heterogeneity, and structural break issues in the data. The results reveal that renewable energy consumption reduces the ecological footprints while nonrenewable energy use boosts the ecological footprints. The results also confirm the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve and pollution haven hypotheses for the panel of the South Asian nations. Besides, foreign direct investment inflows are found to degrade the environment while higher institutional quality improves it. Furthermore, unidirectional causalities are run from overall energy use, economic growth, and institutional quality to ecological footprints. At the same time, bidirectional associations between foreign direct investment inflows and ecological footprints are also ascertained. The overall findings highlight the pertinence of reducing fossil fuel-dependency, enhancing economic growth, restricting dirty foreign direct investment inflows, and improving institutional quality to ensure environmental sustainability across South Asia.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 332
Author(s):  
Janusz Grabara ◽  
Arsen Tleppayev ◽  
Malika Dabylova ◽  
Leonardus W. W. Mihardjo ◽  
Zdzisława Dacko-Pikiewicz

In this contemporary era, environmental problems spread at different levels in all countries of the world. Economic growth does not just depend on prioritizing the environment or improving the environmental situation. If the foreign direct investment is directed to the polluting industries, they will increase pollution and damage the environment. The purpose of the study is to consider the relationship between foreign direct investment in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and economic growth and renewable energy consumption. The study is based on data obtained from 1992 to 2018. The results show that there is a two-way link between foreign direct investment and renewable energy consumption in the considered two countries. The Granger causality test approach is applied to explore the causal relationship between the variables. The Johansen co-integration test approach is also employed to test for a relationship. The empirical results verify the existence of co-integration between the series. The main factors influencing renewable energy are economic growth and electricity consumption. To reduce dependence on fuel-based energy sources, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan need to attract energy to renewable energy sources and implement energy efficiency based on rapid progress. This is because renewable energy sources play the role of an engine that stimulates the production process in the economy for all countries.


Author(s):  
Tabish Nawab ◽  
Muhammad Azhar Bhatti ◽  
Muhammad Atif Nawaz

Environment degradation is a very important issue in developing nations and a lot of research had done to examine the factors of environmental degradation but these studies were missed some important factors which are covered by this study. By examining the effect of economic growth and energy in the presence of renewable energy consumption and technology innovation on environment degradation for ASEAN nations. Panel ARDL (which is PMG and MG) is used to estimate the model, and the advantage of this model is it gives both the long and short-run estimates of the model which helps to understand the situation in both short as well as long run. The results confirm that economic growth, Population, trade, and renewable energy increase the carbon emission level in ASEAN nations. While technology innovation decreased carbon emission levels which means technology innovation helps to keep the environment healthy and clean. Hence, economic growth helps the nations to improve their energy mode from non-renewable to renewable energy, which meets the energy demand by keeping the environment clean.


Green Finance ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 268-286
Author(s):  
Paul Adjei Kwakwa ◽  
◽  
Frank Adusah-Poku ◽  
Kwame Adjei-Mantey ◽  
◽  
...  

<abstract> <p>Access to clean energy is necessary for environmental cleanliness and poverty reduction. That notwithstanding, many in developing countries especially those in sub-Saharan Africa region lack clean energy for their routine domestic activities. This study sought to unravel the factors that influence clean energy accessibility in sub-Saharan Africa region. Clean energy accessibility, specifically access to electricity, and access to clean cooking fuels and technologies, were modeled as a function of income, foreign direct investment, inflation, employment and political regime for a panel of 31 sub-Saharan countries for the period 2000–2015. Regression analysis from fixed effect, random effect and Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares show that access to clean energy is influenced positively by income, foreign direct investment, political regime and employment while inflation has some negative effect on its accessibility. The policy implications from the findings among other things include that expansion in GDP per capita in the sub-region shall be helpful in increasing accessibility to clean energy. Moreover, strengthening the democratic institutions of countries in the region shall enhance the citizens' accessibility to clean energy. Ensuring sustainable jobs for the citizens is necessary for access clean energy.</p> </abstract>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md. Mahmudul Alam ◽  
Wahid Murad

This study investigates the short-term and long-term impacts of economic growth, trade openness and technological progress on renewable energy use in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Based on a panel data set of 25 OECD countries for 43 years, we used the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach and the related intermediate estimators, including pooled mean group (PMG), mean group (MG) and dynamic fixed effect (DFE) to achieve the objective. The estimated ARDL model has also been checked for robustness using the two substitute single equation estimators, these being the dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS). Empirical results reveal that economic growth, trade openness and technological progress significantly influence renewable energy use over the long-term in OECD countries. While the long-term nature of dynamics of the variables is found to be similar across 25 OECD countries, their short-term dynamics are found to be mixed in nature. This is attributed to varying levels of trade openness and technological progress in OECD countries. Since this is a pioneer study that investigates the issue, the findings are completely new and they make a significant contribution to renewable energy literature as well as relevant policy development.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Bikrat Fatiha ◽  
Mohamed Karim

Energy management is a major issue in economic development that goes hand in hand with sustainable development. The objective of this study is to analyze the determinants of energy demand in Morocco during the period 1990-2016. For years to come, energy demand has tended to grow. As a result, it is important to understand the key determinants of energy demand through the analysis of three independent variables: gross domestic product (GDP), access to electricity and direct foreign investment. The approach adopted is to use an Error Correction Vector Model (VECM). Empirical results show that energy demand in Morocco is linked to real causes, which are GDP, access to electricity and foreign direct investment.


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