Analysis of the simultaneous effects of renewable energy consumption and GDP, using Dynamic Panel Data

In the recent years, renewable energy sources are an important component of world energy consumption. GDP is one of the main measures of a country’s economic activity. Most of the studies examine the impact of renewable energy consumption on GDP with single equation model and the others use dynamic panel data. Since the Granger causality analysis’s findings of this paper establish bidirectional causality between GDP and renewable energy consumption, the purpose of this study is to develop a simultaneous-equations model to explore the interaction between GDP and renewable energy consumption in a dynamic panel data. This model uses GDP and renewable energy consumption as endogenous variables and seven factors as exogenous variables. By using a dynamic panel data of 34 OECD countries from 1990 to 2012, the model is estimated by using the two-stage least-squares method. The results confirm the important influence of renewables and non-renewables as well as capital and labor force on GDP in OECD countries. Based on the results, both GDP and real oil price play an important role in renewable energy consumption. Our findings suggest that energy planners and policy makers need to increase renewable energy investment to ensure sustainable economic development in future.