Rewiring Energy Justice: ICT, Institutional Quality, and the Macroeconomic Challenge of Energy Poverty

Deng Yue and Shi Xinxing

Politická ekonomie, vol. preprint

Abstract: Energy poverty presents substantial problems with energy security, environmental sustainability, and inclusive economic development - fundamental issues of political economy. This study examines the macroeconomic impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on mitigating energy poverty in 91 countries from 2002 to 2021 through an econometric model. The analysis indicates that ICT can alleviate energy poverty. However, its impact varies by region. In Europe, the expansion of ICT is associated with improved energy availability, hence favorably impacting energy security. In contrast, the rise of ICT in North and South America seems to worsen energy poverty, whereas no statistically significant effect is observed in Asia, Africa, or Oceania. The study finds governance efficiency and intellectual property protection as essential institutional enablers that enhance the positive effects of ICT. These findings underscore the necessity for customized policy frameworks that amalgamate technological progress with robust institutions to foster energy justice and macroeconomic resilience. This research enhances the political economics discourse by demonstrating how institutional contexts shape digital infrastructure, hence affecting the distributional results of energy transitions.

Keywords: Energy poverty; information and communication technology; government effectiveness; intellectual property rights regime (search for similar items in EconPapers)
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://polek.vse.cz/doi/10.18267/j.polek.1532.html (text/html)
free of charge

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:prg:jnlpol:v:preprint:id:1532

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Redakce Politické ekonomie, Vysoká škola ekonomická, nám. W. Churchilla 4, 130 67 Praha 3
http://polek.vse.cz

DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.1532

Access Statistics for this article

Politická ekonomie is currently edited by Jiřina Bulisová

More articles in Politická ekonomie from Prague University of Economics and Business Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Stanislav Vojir ().