The Non-Linear Effects of Energy Efficiency Gains on the Incidence of Energy Poverty

Raad Al-Tal, Muntasir Murshed, Paiman Ahmad, Abdelrahman J. K. Alfar, Mohga Bassim, Mohamed Elheddad, Mira Nurmakhanova and Haider Mahmood ()
Additional contact information
Raad Al-Tal: Department of Economics, The University of Jordan, Amman 11942, Jordan
Paiman Ahmad: Department of Law, College of Humanity Sciences, University of Raparin, Ranya 46012, Iraq
Abdelrahman J. K. Alfar: Department of Economics, The University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK
Mohga Bassim: Department of Economics and International Studies, University of Buckingham, Buckingham MK18 1EG, UK
Mira Nurmakhanova: Department of Accounting and Finance, KIMEP University, Almaty 050010, Kazakhstan

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-20

Abstract: Energy poverty is defined as insufficient access to modern energy resources which are relatively cleaner than the traditionally utilized ones. In this regard, the incidence of energy poverty is particularly higher in the cases of the developing countries across the globe. Accordingly, the chronic energy poverty issues in the developing countries within Sub-Saharan Africa have become a major socioeconomic and environmental concern for the associated governments. Hence, this study aims to evaluate the effects of energy efficiency gains and shocks to other key macroeconomic factors on energy poverty in the context of selected Sub-Saharan African nations. In this study, we measure energy poverty in terms of the lack of access to clean cooking fuels and technologies for the population of the selected Sub-Saharan African countries. The overall findings from the common correlated effects panel regression analysis reveal that energy efficiency gains initially aggravate the energy poverty situation but improve it later on; consequently, a U-shaped relationship between energy efficiency and access to clean cooking fuels and technologies is evidenced. Besides, the predicted threshold levels of energy efficiency are observed to be higher than the average energy efficiency level of the Sub-Saharan African nations. Moreover, the results also portray that economic growth, carbon dioxide emissions, foreign direct investment inflows, and international trade are effective in reducing energy poverty. Conversely, financial development is witnessed to be ineffective in influencing the incidence of energy poverty in this region.

Keywords: energy poverty; energy efficiency; cross-sectional dependency; slope heterogeneity; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/11055/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/11055/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:19:p:11055-:d:650746

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().