Is energy security a driver for economic growth? Evidence from a global sample

Abstract

This study examines whether energy security contributes to economic growth for a global sample of 74 countries covering the period from 2002 to 2013. The benchmark model is built based on an extended version of the Cobb-Douglas production function. Ten measures of energy security are employed to capture five aspects of energy security including availability, accessibility, acceptability, affordability, and develop-ability. Besides the whole sample, we also conduct the panel data analysis on subsamples of countries based on different income levels, using Panel-Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) and Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) techniques that correct for heterogeneity and autocorrelation and produce robust standard errors. The empirical results appear to be relatively robust to these two estimation techniques. Overall, we find that energy security enhances economic growth for both the whole sample and subsamples of countries. Meanwhile, energy insecurity measured by energy intensity and carbon intensity variables has a negative impact on economic growth. The results vary across subsamples for several cases. The findings imply that at the global level, energy for economic development, energy security, and climate change mitigation should be pursued as integrated themes since there are linkages among these three agendas.