Oil consumption and economic efficiency: A comparative analysis of advanced, developing and emerging economies

This paper investigates the economic efficiency-oil consumption relationship in 42 countries during the period 1986-2006. In a first stage by using DEA window analysis countries' economic efficiencies are obtained. In a second stage an econometric analysis based on robust GMM estimators reveals an inverted ‘U’-shape relationship between oil consumption and economic efficiency. In order to capture heterogeneities among countries' development stages the analysis has been separated into two groups (advanced economies and developing/emerging economies). The results show that advanced economies have much higher turning points compared to emerging and developing economies. It appears that oil consumption increases countries' economic efficiency. In addition the consumption patterns of oil products and its derivatives have changed through years and among countries. The different turning points from the econometric analysis indicate the dependence of oil consumption in advanced economies (higher turning points) is driven mainly by household purchasing activities and their standards of living (transport, housing and water, food, etc.). Finally, it appears that oil consumption is the main driver behind the progress of industrialization and urbanization regardless of the country's development stage.     

Trade-related spillovers and industrial competitiveness: Exploring the linkages for OECD countries

This study examines how trade-related spillovers impact the OECD countries' industrial competitiveness; with an emphasis on China's innovative efforts and reintegration into the global economy. In comparison with the major R&D countries, benefits attributable to spillovers are found to be more sizable for the rest of the OECD countries.This result is consistent with the observed convergence of competitiveness between the two groups of countries during 1990–2009.Moreover, our empirical results suggest China's trade-related spillovers can produce both positive and negative effects on OECD countries' industrial competitiveness. The persistence of the spillover effects is found even after controlling for trade openness creating possible spurious association. Finally, our finding TFP growth as the competitiveness driver stresses the consequential role of STI (science, technology, and innovation) policies in supporting sustainable and balanced growth.     

Convergence of consumption patterns during macroeconomic transition: A model of demand in Ireland and the OECD

This study uses country-level panel data on consumption in Ireland and seven other OECD countries to examine the evolution of Irish consumption patterns as Ireland underwent rapid macroeconomic growth. Consumption levels obviously increased due to substantially higher incomes, but it is less clear how the shares of different types of goods purchased have changed or whether Ireland's consumption mix has converged with that of other high-income countries. Rankings based on a simple distance measure of consumption similarity suggest that Ireland moved from a “low-income” pattern similar to Portugal or Greece to a “high-income” pattern like that of Canada between 1995 and 2003. Using static and dynamic Almost Ideal Demand System models, we first estimate long- and short-run Irish price and income elasticities for nine categories of commodities between 1976 and 2003. These results provide evidence of substantial habit formation in aggregate consumption. We then estimate a long-run cross-country model covering six aggregate commodity groups between 1975 and 2003. The analysis shows that Ireland's demand parameters remain more similar to those of Greece than to higher-income OECD countries in the sample. Although Ireland has overtaken most other OECD countries in per capita income, it is still converging to a higher-income consumption pattern. We foresee further convergence of Irish expenditure patterns towards a pattern typical of high-income countries.     

Environmental performance,corruption and economic growth: global evidence using a new data set

This study investigates the relationship between environmental performance, corruption and economic growth using panel data of 87 countries covering the period from 2002 to 2012. The Environmental Performance Index is used for the first time to evaluate the environmental quality on economic growth. By employing both ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ panel models, we find that environmental performance is positively related to economic growth and is more significant in non-Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) countries. Moreover, when corruption is incorporated, the empirical estimation results indicate that although lower corruption helps economic growth in non-OECD countries, the negative coefficients of the three interactive terms show that the positive effect of environment performance on economic growth will drop, while greater environmental performance combined with natural resource abundance inevitably leads to inefficient bureaucracies and hence disadvantageous economic growth. As a result, policymakers in non-OECD countries should carefully ensure better government quality when they exhibit strong environmental performance so as to avoid any disadvantageous impact upon economic growth.     

Environment, human development and economic growth

Over the last few years, environmental issues have entered into policy design, particularly development and growth policies. Natural resources are considered necessary production inputs and environmental quality is considered a welfare determinant. The integration of environmental issues into economic growth and development theories and empirics is currently widely analyzed in the literature. The effects of natural resources endowment on economic growth are mainly analyzed through the so-called Resource Curse Hypothesis (RCH) whereas the effects of economic growth on environmental quality are part of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). Furthermore, recent contributions on RCH and EKC have shown the important role of institutions and human development dimensions in building a sustainable development path. In this paper, we attempt to analyze the causal relationships between economic growth, human development and sustainability combining the RCH and EKC models and adopting a human development perspective. Results confirm the importance of high institutional quality and investments for human capital accumulation in order to build a sustainable development path.     

Exploring the existence of Kuznets curve in countries' environmental efficiency using DEA window analysis

This paper, using data envelopment (DEA) window analysis and generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators, examines the existence of a Kuznets type relationship between countries' environmental efficiency and national income. Specifically, it measures the environmental efficiency of 17 OECD countries by constructing environmental efficiency ratios for the time period 1980-2002. The analysis with the application of dynamic panel data reveals that there isn't a Kuznets type relationship between environmental efficiency and income. Allowing for dynamic effects we find that the adjustment to the target ratio is instantaneous. We also find that increased economic activity does not always ensure environmental protection and thus the path of growth is important in addition to the growth itself.     

Institutions,Institutionalism: 1776–1974

Since developing countries were relatively free from the trade regulations relating to export promotion policies until 1994, the northeast Asian dynamic economies could pursue export promotion policies aggressively during the period of rapid economic growth. Under the current World Trade Organization (WTO) system, there are restrictions or even prohibitions on the developing countries' use of export promotion policies. One may doubt the fairness of the current WTO system, which regulates the use of export promotion policies regardless of different economic development levels. The current paper suggests various ways of allowing developing countries to develop their production capacities and exports of manufactured products. It also provides suggestions on modifying the current WTO regulations in favor of the export promotion policies of developing countries. Such special treatment of developing countries could be justified from the viewpoint of distributional fairness applied to international trade relations.     

Energy consumption,carbon emissions,and economic growth in India: Evidence from directed acyclic graphs

This study investigates the temporal linkages among economic growth, energy consumption, and carbon emissions for India during the period 1970–2008 using recently developed methods of out-of-sample Granger causality tests and directed acyclic graphs (DAG). Building on the data-driven DAG representation, we uncover the contemporaneous causal patterns between economic activities and environmental pollutants, which is first documented in the literature and could further improve the investigation of the dynamic linkage pattern. The results show that energy consumption uni-directionally Granger causes carbon emissions and economic growth, while there is a bidirectional causality between carbon emissions and economic growth. We also find that trade openness is one of the important determinants of energy consumption and carbon emissions. Some important policy implications are also discussed.     

Does Ecological Footprint Impede Economic Growth? An Empirical Analysis Based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis

This paper examines the relationship between income and environmental quality using environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. The hypothesised link is tested using time‐series analysis of 22 countries over the period 1961–2011. The degree of environmental impacts of economic activity is measured using ecological footprint (EF) per capita as explanatory variable, while real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and its quadratic and cubic forms are used as predictor variables in these countries. First, the EKC hypothesis is tested through examining the relationship between EF and GDP using linear, quadratic and cubic functions. Further, the long‐run relationship between EF and GDP is investigated using a vector error correction model. It was found that there is a cointegrated relationship between the variables in almost all countries, which was statistically significant, and EKC supported in 10 countries. Additionally, almost all error correction terms are correct in sign and are significant, which implies that some percentage of disequilibria in EF in the previous year adjusts back to the long‐run equilibrium in the current year. Therefore, an efficient trade‐off between environmental protection and economic benefits should be taken, and EF should be reduced through changing consumption patterns, improving the efficiency of use of resources and cleaner technology choices.     

Technological specialization and economic performance in oecd countries

The paper investigates the growing sectoral specialization in technological activities of OECD countries (measured using patent data) and its impact on countries innovative-and economic performance in the 1975-1990 period. Aggregate indicators of sectoral specialization are introduced, showing the extent to which countries concentrate their innovations in few fields, or spread them across several sectors. A general positive relationship us found between the degree of specializatin in technology and higher rates of growth, while specialization in electronics-related fields in not associated to better economic or technological performances.The position of individual countries in these patterns is also examined, showing that specialization has been an element of the catching-up process of the past decades, which has led to a growing economic convergence among OECD countries.     

The role of consumption patterns,demand and technological factors on the recent evolution of CO2 emissions in a group of advanced economies

Changes in production structures and modifications of patterns of consumption are key factors in the fight against environmental harm. Initiatives such as Agenda 21, promoted by the UN, highlight the need to evaluate the relationships among factors of production and consumption, innovation and demographics, and the environment, in the attainment of sustainable development. In this context, our work studies in depth those factors underlying the economic activity of households, in a representative group of European Union countries and the US. Within the framework of an input–output model, a Structural Decomposition Analysis is considered in order to identify the weight that growth in demand, changes in patterns of consumption, changes in the distribution of income, the substitution of inputs, and changes in energy intensity have all had on the evolution of CO₂ emissions. The work specifically seeks to identify common patterns and differential behaviors among productive sectors in the European social environment. The results show that growth in demand, and therefore in production, largely absorbs the limited effect of technological and efficiency improvements and the incipient changes observed in consumption patterns.     

Democracy and Economic Growth in an Interdependent World

We model dynamic interdependence in cross‐country economic growth processes by allowing it to vary according to democratic distance among economies. Stochastic distributional dynamics and temporal effects of democracy on economic growth are studied, and spatial variation in economic growth is explored. Among important results, democratic poverty trap is found to exist indicating the possibility of persistence of (un)stable democratic equilibria at different levels of democracy. Our cross‐sectional regression evinces that democracy has exerted significant growth‐enhancing effect and that the democratic distribution has steadily shifted locus from low‐level to high‐level equilibrium. Our spatial analysis of democracy‐economic growth nexus provide evidence of significant dynamic spatial autocorrelation and complementarity among countries' growth processes. Finally, it is demonstrated that the relevance of geographical proximity in facilitating interdependence in economic growth is overshadowed by relational proximity.     

ON THE IMPACT OF PUBLIC DEBT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH: DOES COUNTRY RISK MATTER?

This study examines the nonlinear impacts of four country risk indices on the debt‐growth nexus for 61 countries in a panel data framework. Our results show evidence of the different debt‐growth nexus under the different degrees of country risk. Under a high‐risk environment, a country's economic growth is harmed by raising its public debt. The negative effects public debt has on economic growth become weak under low political and financial‐risk environments, while an increase in public debt could help to stimulate economic growth under low composite and economic risk environments. In addition, the differences of countries' income and debt levels also lead country risks to have different effects on the debt‐growth nexus, suggesting that a country should borrow appropriately based on its current risk environments while improving economic performance. (JEL C33, E02, H63, O43)     

Causal relationship between energy consumption and GDP growth revisited: A dynamic panel data approach

This paper uses the panel data of energy consumption and GDP for 82 countries from 1972 to 2002. Based on the income levels defined by the World Bank, the data are divided into four categories: low income group, lower middle income group, upper middle income group, and high income group. We employ the GMM-SYS approach for the estimation of the panel VAR model in each of the four groups. Afterwards, the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth is tested and ascertained. We discover: (a) in the low income group, there exists no causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth; (b) in the middle income groups (lower and upper middle income groups), economic growth leads energy consumption positively; (c) in the high income group countries, economic growth leads energy consumption negatively. After further in-depth analysis of energy related data, the results indicate that, in the high income group, there is a great environmental improvement as a result of more efficient energy use and reduction in the release of CO₂. However, in the upper middle income group countries, after the energy crisis, the energy efficiency declines and the release of CO₂ rises. Since there is no evidence indicating that energy consumption leads economic growth in any of the four income groups, a stronger energy conservation policy should be pursued in all countries.     

Is nuclear energy clean? Revisit of Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis in OECD countries

A transition towards the adoption of clean energy sources in electricity generation is essential to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. The present study aims to examine the EKC hypothesis by taking into account nuclear energy in 18 OECD countries for the period 1995–2015. This study employs panel dynamic Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) and panel Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) to investigate the effects of electricity production from nuclear source, electricity production from non-renewables and trade openness on CO₂ emissions. The empirical findings suggest that EKC hypothesis is valid in OECD countries where nuclear energy plays a pivotal role in protecting the environment. On the contrary, non-renewable energy sources tend to increase CO₂ emissions. Our results support the notion that electricity generated by nuclear source leads to lower CO₂ emissions without retarding the long run growth in OECD countries. The findings also provide important policy insights and recommendations not only for OECD countries, but also for developing countries in designing appropriate energy and economic policies.     

How Bad is Corruption? Cross‐country Evidence of the Impact of Corruption on Economic Prosperity

Most people today would argue that corruption is bad for countries' economic development. Yet, we still lack a reliable empirical estimate of the effect. This study addresses the econometric shortcomings of the literature and provides an estimate of the causal impact of corruption on gross domestic product per capita across countries. Certain dimensions of a country's culture are used as instruments for corruption. These instruments stay strong when the other deep determinants of economic development, geography, and the remaining dimensions of institutions and culture are controlled for. In the process of choosing controls, however, the entire set of variables available in the Quality of Governance online database (QOG) that includes all central variables from the literature on institutions and culture are included. It is found that corruption does exert a significant and negative impact on countries' productivity levels.     

Taking the “U” out of Kuznets: A comprehensive analysis of the EKC and environmental degradation

Unlike most Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) studies which focus on narrow measures of pollution as proxies for environmental quality, we test the validity of the EKC using the Ecological Footprint (EF), a more comprehensive measure of environmental degradation. We find no empirical evidence of an EKC relationship between the EF and economic development, and only limited support for such a relationship among the components of the EF. In addition, we discover that energy is largely responsible for the lack of an EKC relationship, and that energy consumption levels would have to be cut by over 50% in order for a statistically significant EKC relationship to emerge from the data. Overall, these results suggest that growth alone will not lead to sustainable development.     

产业集聚与经济增长质量——基于全球82个国家和地区面板数据的实证分析

本文通过五个维度构建了国家层面的经济增长质量指标体系,采用熵值法测算了全球82个国家和地区的经济增长质量指数,并在此基础上实证研究了产业集聚与经济增长质量的关系。研究发现：制造业集聚与服务业集聚水平的提高有助于改善一国的经济增长质量,但两者对经济增长质量的影响渠道有所不同。服务业集聚对经济增长质量的影响在不同类型国家之间存在异质性,即服务业集聚程度的增加能够明显改善非OECD国家和地区的经济增长质量,但对OECD国家和地区的经济增长质量影响不显著。此外,FDI对制造业集聚与一国经济增长质量的关系以及对服务业集聚与一国经济增长质量的关系,分别具有正向调节效应和负向调节效应,而人力资本水平对制造业集聚和服务业集聚与一国经济增长质量的关系均具有正向调节效应。本文的研究结论对于如何制定相关产业政策以推动经济高质量发展具有重要的参考价值。     

Does Financial Development 'Lead' Economic Growth?

We use the Toda & Yamamoto (1995) causality testing procedure to investigate the relationship, if any, between financial development and economic growth.We use quarterly data from 19 OECD countries and China, and use total credit and interest spread as indicators of financial development. We also consider the impact of financial development on investment and productivity. We find meagre evidence that financial development 'leads' economic growth, either directly or indirectly. This casts further doubt on claims that financial development is a necessary and perhaps sufficient precursor to economic growth.     

Skill Intensity in Foreign Trade and Economic Growth

This paper explores the link between trade structure, trade specialization and per capita income growth. It is argued that industrial upgrading in export specialization patterns has a positive long-run growth effect, while the effect of structural change in industrial import patterns is in principle ambiguous. A standard empirical growth model is augmented by various measures of structural change. The hypothesis that not trade per se matters, but that various types of trading activities impact differently on economic growth is tested on a sample of 45 countries (OECD members and selected Asian and Latin American countries) over the period 1981–1997. The data set comprises exports and imports for 35 manufacturing industries at the 3-digit level of the ISIC classification which are grouped according to skill intensity. The results of the dynamic panel estimation point towards a positive long-run growth effect arising from trade specialization in medium-high-skill-intensive industries. Further, important distinctions between the skill intensity of export and import patterns and their respective influence on economic development, as well as between the group of developing countries and OECD members are observed in this relationship.JEL classification: C23, F43, O19, O41, O57The author is grateful to Michael Landesmann and Robert Stehrer (wiiw), Neil Foster and Jesús Crespo Cuaresma (Department of Economics, University of Vienna), Michael Peneder (Austrian Institute of Economic Research) and two referees for valuable comments. This research is based on Jubiläumsfondsprojekt Nr. 8954, financial support by Oesterreichische Nationalbank is gratefully acknowledged.