Investigating the effect of asymmetric shocks of the shadow economy on energy consumption in terms of financial development in Iran

This paper investigates the effect of positive and negative shocks from the shadow economy and financial development on energy consumption during the period of 1974–2014 in the short and long term using the non-linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag. The ratio of liquidity to GDP has been used as an indicator of financial development, and the volume of the shadow economy calculated by Piraee and Rajaee (2015) has also been used, using a multiple indicators, multiple causes (MIMIC) model. The results show that the effect of positive and negative shadows of the shadow economy and financial development on energy consumption in the long and short term is asymmetric, and this asymmetry is that in the short and long term, a negative shadow economy shock has a greater effect than a positive shock. In the long term, the positive shock of the financial development has a greater effect on energy consumption than its negative shock. The negative shock of the shadow economy with an interruption leads to an increase of 0.04 in energy consumption, but its positive shock reduces energy consumption by only 0.02. Also, the relationship between positive and negative shocks of financial development on energy consumption is direct. Therefore, in order to control energy consumption, investing in improving financial development through improved technology will lead to reducing environmental pollution and saving energy consumption.