Do economic development and human capital decrease non-renewable energy consumption? Evidence for OECD countries

Rafael Alvarado (), Qiushi Deng, Brayan Tillaguango, Priscila Méndez, Diana Bravo, José Chamba, María Alvarado-Lopez and Munir Ahmad

Energy, 2021, vol. 215, issue PB

Abstract: The false hope that economic development would lead to a decrease in fossil sources’ energy consumption can be an obstacle to fighting global warming. Is it realistic to expect that more knowledge will lead public policymakers to take more decisive action to mitigate climate change’s adverse effects? This research attempts to answer both premises using data for developed countries with high human capital levels: 27-member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-OECD during 1980–2015. Access to energy and that it is non-polluting is raised as a goal of the Sustainable Development Goals. We combine linear and non-linear models: we specifically employ threshold regressions and second-generation cointegration techniques, FMOLS, and causality. Our results are disappointing for the first premise: economic development does not reduce energy consumption from fossil sources. However, human capital does decrease the consumption of non-renewable energy. In order to capture current trends in economies, we include the globalization index, the urbanization rate, and services. The results of the cointegration tests suggest the existence of a long-term relationship between the variables. Our results indicate that the human capital index and globalization are the last hope to promote the transition to a more sustainable energy matrix in developed countries.

Keywords: Non-renewable energy; Human capital index; Output; Cointegration; OECD (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (47)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220322544
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:215:y:2021:i:pb:s0360544220322544

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.119147

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().