Coal consumption and economic growth in South Africa: An empirical investigation

Nicholas Odhiambo

Energy & Environment, 2016, vol. 27, issue 2, 215-226

Abstract: In this paper, we examine the causal relationship between coal consumption and economic growth in South Africa, which is one of the largest coal producers and consumers in the world. We incorporate employment as an intermittent variable between coal consumption and economic growth – thereby creating a simple trivariate causality model. Using the ARDL bounds testing approach, we find that there is a unidirectional causal flow from economic growth to coal consumption in South Africa – both in the short run and in the long run. The results also show that there is a short-run unidirectional causal flow from coal consumption to employment, as well as a bidirectional causality between economic growth and employment. The study, therefore, concludes that for South Africa, it is economic growth, which Granger-causes coal consumption, and not vice versa. This implies that coal conservation could be achieved in South Africa – without necessarily compromising economic growth.

Keywords: South Africa; coal consumption; employment; economic growth; ARDL bounds testing approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0958305X15627535 (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:sae:engenv:v:27:y:2016:i:2:p:215-226

DOI: 10.1177/0958305X15627535

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Energy & Environment
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().