Energy Consumption, Employment and the Kyoto Protocol in New Zealand: Searching for Causality

This paper considers the causal relationship between employment, energy consumption and economic growth using a range of different approaches. The study finds long-run neutrality in energy consumption, except for electricity and oil consumption where there is evidence of uni-directional linkages from electricity consumption to employment and from oil consumption to employment. We also found that there is uni-directional link from real GDP growth to employment. These conclusions are robust across the different methodologies and have implications of environmental and energy issues including the Kyoto Protocol.