Consumption of renewable energy and economic growth

Abstract

The significance of renewable energy is highly recognized all over the world. However, the impact of consuming renewable energy on the economy is very often disputable and contravercial. The paper explores links between consumption of renewable energy, economic growth, trade, capital and labour. The study covers 28 European Union countries for the period from 1990 to 2012. Energy has been considered as one of production factors, which has a great impact on output. Thus, the neo-classical Cobb-Douglas function has been employed to reach the aim of the article. Following the relevant state-of-art, economic growth, consumption of renewable energy, trade, capital and labour are considered as separate factors. The analysis indicates that consumption of renewable energy boots economy in 12 countries out of 28. The neutrality hypothesis has been confirmed in 2 countries, while the conservation hypothesis has been proved in 6 cases. The weakest links between the consumption of renewable energy and other factors has been noticed in Luxembourgh’s case.