This research shows that natural disasters may hurt energy consumption by using data on 123 countries over the period 1990–2015 and classifying them according to their economic development level and ...region based on World Development Indicators. We employ a two-step system-GMM method to examine the effect of natural disasters on energy consumption, presenting findings that support our hypotheses in the models and show a strong negative effect for low-income countries or those in the Africa region. After considering an alternative proxy for natural disaster, we implement quantile regression methods. Their results find that natural disasters exhibit a negative and significant impact on oil, renewable, and nuclear energy consumptions. The quantile regression models used in the robustness check present that the effects are stronger for low-level energy consumption economies.
•Natural disasters exhibit a negative impact on oil, renewable, and nuclear consumptions.•This negative impact clearly appears in low-income countries or in Africa region.•Different natural disasters and energy sources affect the disaster-energy consumption nexus.•Provide policy implications for governments, policy-makers, and researchers.
Understanding the dynamic behaviour of Sub-Saharan African households as they move along the energy ladder is essential for the energy transition in developing countries. This study applies Fixed and ...Random effect panel data models to analyse the drivers of rural and urban households' energy transition in Nigeria from 2010 to 2018. The estimation results from the panel models with robust standard errors show that rural households tend to increase their expenses on fuel sources that potentially substitute the energy source whose prices have increased. However, there is no significant relationship between the price and expenditure on different fuels in urban households. Irrespective of spatiality, we find that aside from income – education, household size, and internet access are essential drivers of household fuel choices. More importantly, we find evidence of reverse energy transition. We argue that this reverse energy transition limits the shift to cleaner fuels and increases the economic vulnerabilities of rural households. Our analysis also reveals that Nigerians’ preference for fuels is shifting to be price inelastic. We make a strong case for policies and interventions that raise household income, empower women, reduce the cost of living, and improve clean and affordable energy access to encourage energy transition.
•Analyse the drivers of rural and urban households' energy transition in Nigeria.•Irrespective of spatiality, income, education, family size are essential drivers.•We found evidence of reverse energy transition in Nigerian households.•Nigerians' preference for fuels is shifting to be price inelastic.•We make a strong case for policies and interventions for energy transition.
•Economic complexity is a negative and significant predictor of income inequality.•The complexity of an economy co-evolves with the inclusivity of its institutions.•The Product Gini Index (PGI) ...estimates the income inequality of a product's exporters.•We visualize the inequality implications of structural changes at atlas.media.mit.edu.
A country’s mix of products predicts its subsequent pattern of diversification and economic growth. But does this product mix also predict income inequality? Here we combine methods from econometrics, network science, and economic complexity to show that countries exporting complex products—as measured by the Economic Complexity Index—have lower levels of income inequality than countries exporting simpler products. Using multivariate regression analysis, we show that economic complexity is a significant and negative predictor of income inequality and that this relationship is robust to controlling for aggregate measures of income, institutions, export concentration, and human capital. Moreover, we introduce a measure that associates a product to a level of income inequality equal to the average GINI of the countries exporting that product (weighted by the share the product represents in that country’s export basket). We use this measure together with the network of related products—or product space—to illustrate how the development of new products is associated with changes in income inequality. These findings show that economic complexity captures information about an economy’s level of development that is relevant to the ways an economy generates and distributes its income. Moreover, these findings suggest that a country’s productive structure may limit its range of income inequality. Finally, we make our results available through an online resource that allows for its users to visualize the structural transformation of over 150 countries and their associated changes in income inequality during 1963–2008.
The implementation of China's carbon emission trading policy has targeted achieving emission reduction and environmental protection as well as promoting economic development and technological ...innovation. The analysis is made through applying the Difference-in-Differences model and using the Ordinary Least Squares method and the Least Square Dummy Variable method in the paper. Results show that the pilot carbon emission trading policy leads to the expansion of employment scales and the reduction of carbon emissions after controlling for the environmental regulation, population size, economic level, and other important variables. Thus, it implies that an employment double dividend exists. For the Porter effect, it is found in the pilot carbon emission trading policy only without adding any control variable. The effect is further verified based on a robustness checks and a placebo test. Furthermore, from the perspective of market-oriented environmental regulation policy, this study explains that the carbon emission trading system launched in 2017 needs to be improved to spread both the employment double dividend and the Porter effect to the whole nation. China also needs to form a complete set of strict ecological environment protection policies and administrative measures to achieve sustainable development of the economy.
•The Difference-in-Differences model and LSDV method were applied for the analysis.•An employment double dividend effect is found in China's carbon trading policy.•Porter effect is found only without adding any control variable.•Improving China's national carbon emissions trading system is needed.
We examine the environmental consequences of two regional economic development (RED) policies that aimed to develop the economy of the relatively underdeveloped upper Pearl River (UPR) regions in ...Guangdong Province, China. Applying the triple‐difference analysis to annual county‐industry‐level data, we find that the two RED policies caused higher growth in industries with high water pollution than in industries with less water pollution in the UPR regions. The second RED policy with environmental regulations was effective in restraining the new entry of firms in high‐pollution industries into the UPR regions but failed to drive existing high‐pollution firms out of the UPR regions. Firms' location decisions were driven by the more favorable tax regimes and less stringent pollution regulations in the UPR regions.
The adverse impacts of climate change have occupied central theme of many policy initiatives. This paper investigated the impact of economic development, fossil fuel consumptions and population ...density on CO2 in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh using annual data over the period 1971–2014. We have applied panel Autoregressive distributed lags model to estimate the long‐run dynamics and Vector error correction model specified Granger causality test for finding the causality direction. Using three multivariate equations model, the empirical outcome of our study has established key associations that have crucial policy implications. Firstly, the results of auto‐regressive distributed lags (ARDL) confirmed the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis that the relationship between CO2 and economic development is U‐shaped. Moreover, fossil fuel consumption and population density have a positive impact on CO2 emission in the long run. VECM test evidence suggests that short‐run causalities from economic development to CO2, population density to CO2 and fossil fuel consumption to CO2 exist. Secondly, CO2 has a negative impact on economic development while the impacts of fossil fuel, FDI and total exports on economic development have been significantly positive in the long run. In short run, CO2, fossil fuel consumption and FDI Granger cause economic development. Lastly, CO2 emission negatively influences population density while economic development positively affects population density in long run. Moreover, short‐run causalities from economic development to population density and CO2 to population density exit. For policy drives, efficient and low carbon emission technologies should be used.
Developing economies have found it hard to use natural resource wealth to improve their economic performance. Utilizing resource endowments is a multistage economic and political problem that ...requires private investment to discover and extract the resource, fiscal regimes to capture revenue, judicious spending and investment decisions, and policies to manage volatility and mitigate adverse impacts on the rest of the economy. Experience is mixed, with some successes (such as Botswana and Malaysia) and more failures. This paper reviews the challenges that are faced in successfully managing resource wealth, the evidence on country performance, and the reasons for disappointing results.
Rural-to-urban migration is an inherent part of the economic development process, yet it is relatively understudied in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we attempt to describe the present state of ...rural–urban migration from several different angles. Migration rates are quite low in several countries, despite the fact that large proportions of populations continue to reside in rural areas, and that there are clearly several types of gains to migration. We offer a number of possible explanations for low migration rates. We make recommendations for improvements in research on rural–urban migration and migration policy in Africa.
The ecological footprint, a measure of human demand on earth’s ecosystems, represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area that is necessary to supply the resources a human ...population consumes and to mitigate associated waste. This study estimates the impact of economic growth and natural resources on Pakistan’s ecological footprint using an autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) model for long-run estimation. The empirical findings indicate that natural resources have a positive effect on an ecological footprint that deteriorates environmental quality and that natural resources help to support the environmental Kuznets hypothesis (EKC). Bidirectional causality is found between natural resources and the ecological footprint, along with a long-run causality between biocapacity and the ecological footprint. The innovative findings have important implications for policy.
PDF
