Does environmental sustainability affect the renewable energy consumption? Nexus among trade openness, CO2 emissions, income inequality, renewable energy, and economic growth in OECD countries

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of carbon emissions, real oil prices, income inequality, economic growth, and trade openness on renewable energy consumption (REC) in twenty-three (23) OECD economies. The study employs the Westerlund panel cointegration technique to verify the existence of long-run equilibrium and the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimator to assess the long-run relationship between the variables, which allows for slope heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependency. Moreover, the panel causality test of Dumitrescu and Hurlin (DH) is utilized to gauge the causal relationship between the variables. The findings of our study reveal that REC is positively related to economic growth, real oil prices, income inequality, and trade openness, but negatively related to CO₂ emissions in OECD countries. In addition, there is one-way causality from GDP per capita to renewable energy consumption and a bidirectional causality between income inequality and REC. Furthermore, the results indicate that OECD policymakers and governments should regard foreign trade as a "clean energy fostering mechanism" while developing energy demand policies that are environmentally friendly.

Keywords: AMG estimator; Income inequality; OECD countries; Renewable energy consumption; Trade openness.