IMPACT OF RENEWABLE ENERGY CONSUMPTION ON ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES
利用1995-2015年28个欧盟国家的面板数据，研究发现可再生能源消费对经济增长有正向影响，且两者存在双向或单向因果关系，为欧盟推广可再生能源政策提供了依据。
This study examines the causal relationship between economic growth and renewable energy consumption using data for 28 countries of European Union, taken from Eurostat database for years from 1995 to 2015. In addition, motivated by EU Directive 2009/28/EC, the tendency of the share of renewable energy consumption into the final energy consumption is analysed. Various panel data techniques implemented in EViews are used. The empirical results suggest a positive impact of renewable energy consumption on economic growth, and emphasize bidirectional or unidirectional Granger causalities between the two macroeconomic indicators, for each country in the panel. These results justify the political decisions of EU concerning the necessity of increasing the renewable energy consumption, and prove that this type of energy consumption has a strong positive impact on economic growth. Thus, the inclusion of such policies in future EU and national strategies is further motivated. Finally, by means of linear regression, an increasing trend was found for the ratio between renewable energy consumption and final energy consumption for all but one of the EU countries.