Investing green for sustainable development without ditching economic growth

Abstract

Global warming and other significant climatic changes arising from the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have placed great policy puzzles on whether to slow or not to slow gross domestic product (GDP) growth. This paper presents and estimates empirical models of growth using standard tools of growth empirics for 23 OECD countries over the period 1990-2017. The main objective is to examine the role of green energy consumption and investment on economic growth. Using the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) with fixed effects, empirical results suggest that green energy consumption and investment-in the sense of renewable energy consumption and expenditure in renewable energy research and development (R&D)-have small, although positive effects on economic growth. These effects are heterogeneous, leading to asymmetric patterns over the conditional quantile distribution of per-capita GDP with stronger effects found in the lower quantiles. The implication of our findings is that capacity utilization in green energy consumption and investment has not been developed to a viable level that will mitigate greenhouse effects and spur sustainable development in the long run.

The synergistic effect of green trade and economic complexity on sustainable environment: A new perspective on the economic and ecological components of sustainable development

“…It has commonly been argued in the degrowth strategy that economic growth cannot occur alongside environmental protection (Kallis et al, 2012; Kang & Lee, 2021). Given the negative environmental effects of economic growth, the question commonly asked is whether to prioritise the environment by slowing down growth (Balcilar et al, 2022). It has however also been pointed out that trying to achieve environmental protection at the expense of economic growth could be counterproductive.…”

Impact of environmental policies on the profitability of greenhouse agriculture in southeastern Spain

“…The application of the incentive system mitigated the partial rise in production costs (Figure 4b). The use of subsidized photovoltaic energy resulted in a partial decrease in production costs of 6.0%, which could be amplified by the increase in energy prices due to the political instability in Eastern Europe and the Honoré et al, 2019;Martos-Pedrero et al, 2022) and in other sectors, such as energy (Balcilar et al, 2022).…”

“…Nevertheless, there is still no economic study that has evaluated the impact of eco‐innovations available for intensive agriculture, although it is known that some techniques can influence the decrease of production costs (i.e., self‐management of agricultural waste biomass) (Castillo‐Díaz, Belmonte‐Ureña, Batlles‐Delafuente, et al, 2022; Castillo‐Díaz, Belmonte‐Ureña, Camacho‐Ferre, et al, 2022). In other sectors, the use of eco‐innovations, research spending, and R&D development have small but positive effects on economic growth (Balcilar et al, 2022), something that has not yet been achieved in the Almeria model.…”

Revisiting the electricity consumption-led growth hypothesis: is the rule defied in France?

“…Having observed that a standard deviational ellipse provides a dynamic evolution patterns of residential energy consumption, suggested that electricity should be prioritised in the development of residential energy for growth. Balcilar et al (2022a) examine the effect of green energy consumption and investment on economic growth in OECD countries within the framework of the standard tools of growth empirics. The results revealed that although the effect of green energy is positive and significant but Rafindadi et al Journal of Economic Structures (2022) 11:27 their impacts on growth are small and heterogeneous across times.…”