The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Electricity Consumption and Economic Growth in Romania

Georgeta Soava, Anca Mehedintu, Mihaela Sterpu and Eugenia Grecu
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Georgeta Soava: Department of Statistics and Economic Informatics, University of Craiova, A.I. Cuza 13, 200585 Craiova, Romania
Anca Mehedintu: Department of Statistics and Economic Informatics, University of Craiova, A.I. Cuza 13, 200585 Craiova, Romania
Mihaela Sterpu: Department of Mathematics, University of Craiova, A.I. Cuza 13, 200585 Craiova, Romania

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-25

Abstract: This paper analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic growth and electricity consumption and investigates the hypothesis of the influence of this consumption on the gross domestic product (GDP) for Romania. Using time series on monthly electricity consumption and quarterly GDP and a multi-linear regression model, we performed an analysis of the evolution of these indicators for 2007–2020, a comparison between their behavior during the financial crisis vs. COVID-19 crisis, and empirically explore the relationships between GDP and electricity consumption or some of its components. The results of the analysis confirm that the shock of declining activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic had a severe negative impact on electric energy consumption and GDP in the first half of 2020, followed by a slight recovery. By using a linear regression model, long-term relationships between GDP and domestic and non-household electricity consumptions were found. The empirically estimated elasticity coefficients confirm the more important impact of non-household electricity consumption on GDP compared to the one of domestic electricity consumption. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the results of the study could be useful for optimizing energy and economic growth policies at the national and European levels.

Keywords: COVID-19; electricity consumption; economic growth; Romania; lockdown; household energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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