Inequality, Finance and Renewable Energy Consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa

Asongu, Simplice and Odhiambo, Nicholas (2020): Inequality, Finance and Renewable Energy Consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa. Published in: Renewable Energy , Vol. 165, No. March (March 2021): pp. 678-688.

Abstract

The study investigates linkages between financial development, income inequality and renewable energy consumption from 39 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The empirical evidence is based on data for the period 2004-2014, Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and Quantile Regressions (QR). The GMM results show that financial development unconditionally promotes renewable energy consumption while income inequality counteracts the underlying positive effect. The QR results reveal that the GMM findings only withstand empirical validity in bottom quantiles of the renewable energy consumption distribution. In order to increase room for policy implications for the promotion of renewable energy consumption, critical masses of income inequality that should not be exceeded are computed for bottom quantiles of the renewable energy consumption distribution while income inequality thresholds that should be exceeded are computed for top quantiles of the renewable energy consumption distribution. The study reconciles two strands of the literature. Theoretical, practical and policy implications are discussed.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Renewable energy; Inequality; Finance; Sub-Saharan Africa; Sustainable development
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H1 - Structure and Scope of Government > H10 - General; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O11 - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O55 - Africa; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q2 - Renewable Resources and Conservation > Q20 - General; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q3 - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation > Q30 - General

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