Revisiting the impact of renewable energy consumption on economic growth: sectoral evidence from the USA.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between sectoral renewable energy consumption and economic growth in the US economy for the period 1950-2020 by using the Fourier component augmented unit root, cointegration, and causality analyses for the transportation, industrial, residential, electric power, and commercial sectors. Our results reveal in the long run that renewable energy will Granger cause growth through the new jobs it will create, the restructuring of the economy which is a prerequisite for replacing fossil energy with renewable energy. On the other hand, causal relationships are less stable and methodology and sector specific in the short run. Accordingly, the electric power and industrial sectors experience conservation patterns in terms of renewable energy consumption, while the growth hypothesis is confirmed for the commercial sector. Different implications are generated for each sector, which are now more important than ever given the current energy crisis in Europe and the urgent need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

The resilience of green firms in the twirl of COVID-19: Evidence from S&P500 Carbon Efficiency Index with a Fourier approach.

This paper investigates the resilience of environmentally friendly companies in an overwhelming economic and social environment that has been generated after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. To this respect, we have investigated the cointegration between the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 Carbon Efficiency Index (CEI) with COVID-19 cases, supplemented with covariates such as government response stringency to the pandemic, economic policy uncertainty, oil prices and global markets fluctuations. We have used daily data from 2nd January to 5th October 2020 and have employed a robust estimator within a Fourier approach to accommodate both sharp and smooth breaks. Our results suggest that green companies have been positively affected by the outbreak of COVID-19. Our paper provides practical implications for companies that wish to furnish themselves with resilience during rough times and stakeholders who wish to invest in safe, long-lasting returns.

Convergence of clean energy consumption-panel unit root test with sharp and smooth breaks.

This paper first visits the clean energy consumption for 21 OECD countries and 14 Emerging market countries through a panel unit root test with both sharp and smooth breaks covering the period from 1965 to 2016. The time-varying fitted intercepts of the estimation could better fit the path of clean energy consumption for selected countries. The empirical results suggest that not only sharp breaks should be considered, but also smooth breaks. The economic implications are insightful for the convergence of clean energy consumption for 22 of 35 countries. For USA, Canada, Austria, Germany, Greece, Ireland, UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Hungary, China, Philippines, and Thailand, the clean energy consumption is divergence. Policy encouragement policy would permanently affect not only clean energy consumption path, but also aggregate economic sectors related to consume clean energy.