| Summary: | 博士 === 國立中正大學 === 國際經濟研究所 === 101 === This dissertation is composed of three articles. The first article used the Granger non-causality test developed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995) to examine the relationship between nuclear energy consumption, renewable energy consumption and income after considering the fluctuant oil price in 13 OECD countries for the period 1984 to 2008. The oil prices on international markets have been fluctuating. This led to increasing costs in production and decreasing their competitive edge in export in countries which were highly dependent on imported energy. Clean energy (including nuclear energy and renewable energy) reduces the instability of oil prices, lessens the dependence on oil imports. The clean energy market is closely related to oil prices. When the oil price increases, the substitute for oil, clean energy is being focused. Therefore, we consider a multivariate model of nuclear energy consumption, renewable energy consumption, oil price, and income, which allows an additional channel of causality to be examined and analyzes whether a substitute or complementary relationship between nuclear energy consumption and oil as well as renewable energy and oil exists.
The results indicated positive impact of nuclear energy consumption on income in Finland, Germany, and United Kingdom, which meant that nuclear energy consumption played a crucial role in the growth process in these countries. In the area of renewable energy consumption, we discovered positive causality from renewable energy consumption to income in Canada and Finland, whereas the opposite causality from income to renewable energy consumption was showed in South Korea and U.S., and a bidirectional relationship was detected in United Kingdom. Furthermore, we also discovered substitutability between renewable energy and oil in Canada while the substitutability between nuclear energy and oil was detected in Japan, South Korea, and United Kingdom.
In the second article, we defined the variable of clean energy, which comprised the nuclear energy and renewable energy, and discussed the causal relationship between clean energy and non-clean energy consumption and income after considering the carbon dioxide emission. The main concept was that we wanted to explain the effectiveness of clean energy. In this study, we understood not only what the relationship is between clean energy consumption, non-clean energy consumption and income but also whether the clean energy consumption could efficiently reduce the carbon dioxide emission. The result indicated that in mid income countries, clean and non-clean energy consumption played a more significant role in economic development than in high and low income countries. 4 countries’ developments of clean energy (Romania, South Africa, Georgia, and Mozambique) have already reached to the level that could reduce the carbon dioxide emission. In addition, in the relationship between different income levels and carbon dioxide emission, we discovered that 4 countries (Israel, Poland, China, and Haiti) would support the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis.
The third article aimed at investigating the link between clean energy consumption and economic growth by applying a new econometric methodology. We used the threshold regression test developed by Hansen (2000) in order to capture a nonlinear effect of the ratio of clean energy consumption to total electricity consumption (CEP) on economic growth. The results indicated when a country’s clean energy consumption was more than 80.26% of the total electricity consumption, the clean energy consumption could spur economic growth. This relationship existed in 15 countries and this 15 countries’ proportion of clean energy consumption average was about 91.81%. On the other hand, when the proportion of clean energy consumption in our regime was equal to or lower than 80.26%, in spite of the increase of clean energy consumption, there was no effect on economic growth which supported the neutrality hypothesis. However, we further split cross sectional data for 98 countries up into different income levels. The results showed that no matter whether a country’s CEP was higher or lower than the threshold value, 13.32%, the positive relationship between clean energy consumption and economic growth was being there in high income countries. On the contrary, in the mid income countries, only those whose CEP were higher than 79.80%, the clean energy played a major role in economic growth process.
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