Does globalization matter in the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth, evidence from Asian emerging economies

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the impact of social, economic and political globalization on the renewable energy-economic growth nexus in a panel of six Asian emerging economies over the period 1975–2020. The results of the CS-ARDL approach show that renewable energy consumption contributes significantly to long run economic growth. Economic and political globalization firmly hold back economic growth, while social globalization directly promotes economic growth. The nonlinear effects of political, social, and economic globalization on economic growth clearly demonstrate the validity of the inverted U-shaped relationship between political globalization, economic globalization, and economic growth, and the U-shaped relationship between social globalization and economic growth. The study also found that economic, social and political globalization moderated the impact of renewable energy on boosting economic growth. Based on the renewable energy consumption model, it is revealed that economic growth significantly promotes long run renewable energy consumption. Economic, social, and political globalization have significantly boosted long run renewable energy consumption. However, the nonlinear effect model reflects a U-shaped relationship between globalization indicators and renewable energy consumption. The interaction of political, economic, and social globalization with economic growth has also witnessed an increase in renewable energy consumption, which supports the scale effect hypothesis. The causality test concludes that there is a two-way causal relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth, thus supporting the feedback hypothesis. The policy implications for Asian emerging economies are discussed based on the empirical analysis of this study.