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This research investigates the relationships among renewable energy consumption, economic growth, and financial development in five sub-Saharan African nations utilizing panel data from 2000 to 2020. Econometric methods are used to ascertain the existence or absence of cross-sectional dependence and the short-run and long-run connections between the following factors: Pesaran cross-sectional dependence (CD) and cross-sectionally augmented IPS (CIPS) unit root tests, pooled mean group (PMG), and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) estimations. The presence of cross-sectional dependence is found and represented with the CIPS unit root test. No significant short-run relationship is found between the variables of the study, yet a significant long-run relationship is present among them. A positive relationship exists between CO2 emissions and financial development, while financial development and renewable energy consumption are found to have negative relationships with CO2 emissions. The study also supports the scale effect of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. Additionally, no causality is found among the variables, and impulse response and variance decomposition estimation are carried out to recommend future effects. Policy implications of findings are discussed, with accompanying suggestions.

This research investigates the relationships among renewable energy consumption, economic growth, and financial development in five sub-Saharan African nations utilizing panel data from 2000 to 2020. Econometric methods are used to ascertain the existence or absence of cross-sectional dependence and the short-run and long-run connections between the following factors: Pesaran cross-sectional dependence (CD) and cross-sectionally augmented IPS (CIPS) unit root tests, pooled mean group (PMG), and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) estimations. The presence of cross-sectional dependence is found and represented with the CIPS unit root test. No significant short-run relationship is found between the variables of the study, yet a significant long-run relationship is present among them. A positive relationship exists between CO2 emissions and financial development, while financial development and renewable energy consumption are found to have negative relationships with CO2 emissions. The study also supports the scale effect of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. Additionally, no causality is found among the variables, and impulse response and variance decomposition estimation are carried out to recommend future effects. Policy implications of findings are discussed, with accompanying suggestions.

Increasing energy efficiency is commonly viewed as providing a key stimulus to economic growth, through investment in efficient technologies, reducing energy use and costs, enabling productivity gains, and generating jobs. However, this view is received wisdom, as empirical validation has remained elusive. A central problem is that current energy-economy models are not thermodynamically consistent, since they do not include the transformation of energy in physical terms from primary to end-use stages. In response, we develop the UK MAcroeconometric Resource COnsumption (MARCO-UK) model, the first econometric economy-wide model to explicitly include thermodynamic efficiency and end energy use (energy services). We find gains in thermodynamic efficiency are a key ‘engine of economic growth’, contributing 25% of the increases to gross domestic product (GDP) in the UK over the period of 1971–2013. This confirms an underrecognised role for energy in enabling economic growth. We attribute most of the thermodynamic efficiency gains to endogenised technical change. We also provide new insights into how the ‘efficiency-led growth engine’ mechanism works in the whole economy. Our results imply a slowdown in thermodynamic efficiency gains will constrain economic growth, whilst future energy-GDP decoupling will be harder to achieve than we suppose. This confirms the imperative for economic models to become thermodynamically consistent.

Increasing energy efficiency is commonly viewed as providing a key stimulus to economic growth, through investment in efficient technologies, reducing energy use and costs, enabling productivity gains, and generating jobs. However, this view is received wisdom, as empirical validation has remained elusive. A central problem is that current energy-economy models are not thermodynamically consistent, since they do not include the transformation of energy in physical terms from primary to end-use stages. In response, we develop the UK MAcroeconometric Resource COnsumption (MARCO-UK) model, the first econometric economy-wide model to explicitly include thermodynamic efficiency and end energy use (energy services). We find gains in thermodynamic efficiency are a key ‘engine of economic growth’, contributing 25% of the increases to gross domestic product (GDP) in the UK over the period of 1971–2013. This confirms an underrecognised role for energy in enabling economic growth. We attribute most of the thermodynamic efficiency gains to endogenised technical change. We also provide new insights into how the ‘efficiency-led growth engine’ mechanism works in the whole economy. Our results imply a slowdown in thermodynamic efficiency gains will constrain economic growth, whilst future energy-GDP decoupling will be harder to achieve than we suppose. This confirms the imperative for economic models to become thermodynamically consistent.

The considerable share of natural gas in the aggregated gross available energy clearly indicates the resource’s importance for the energy security of EU states. Natural gas shortages caused by energy crises result in the resource’s price increases in foreign markets. The condition of the global energy system translates directly to the prices of natural gas for households. The main research objectives were the analysis of prices of household natural gas in the EU, and identification of key factors affecting the prices of household natural gas in Poland and their effect on the prices established in domestic tariffs. The secondary data analysis method (desk research) was used in the research. The 2017–2022 data were acquired from Eurostat, the Polish distributor’s (PGNiG SA) tariffs, the Energy Regulatory Office and exchange information. The paper fills a research gap in the disparity of prices of natural gas supplied to final individual recipients in the EU. It was established that the sudden increases in natural gas purchase prices on energy resource exchanges translated into a similarly dynamic increase in the household gas fuel prices. The price data concerning Poland were compared to analogous data from other EU member states. It was established that in the period between the first half of 2021 and the first half of 2022, gas prices in the EU increased by over 34% on average (maximum of 150%). It was concluded that the household natural gas prices in Poland, established in the officially approved distribution tariffs of PGNiG SA, are substantially affected by two factors: energy resource purchase prices on the Polish Power Exchange (TGE), and purchase prices on foreign markets. The main reason for price increases was the unforeseen substantial changes in the conditions of conducting business activity by PGNiG SA in terms of gas fuel trading, resulting from the increase in high-methane natural gas purchase price at the TGE. On the other hand, the increases in purchase price of natural gas imported from EU or EFTA member states by 2021 have moderately translated into increases in prices established in officially approved tariffs. A similar effect of household natural gas price increase has also occurred in other EU member states but was not uniform. The effect depended on the volume of gas production and consumption in the given country, and on the diversity of gas sources that determined the resource’s purchase price.

The considerable share of natural gas in the aggregated gross available energy clearly indicates the resource’s importance for the energy security of EU states. Natural gas shortages caused by energy crises result in the resource’s price increases in foreign markets. The condition of the global energy system translates directly to the prices of natural gas for households. The main research objectives were the analysis of prices of household natural gas in the EU, and identification of key factors affecting the prices of household natural gas in Poland and their effect on the prices established in domestic tariffs. The secondary data analysis method (desk research) was used in the research. The 2017–2022 data were acquired from Eurostat, the Polish distributor’s (PGNiG SA) tariffs, the Energy Regulatory Office and exchange information. The paper fills a research gap in the disparity of prices of natural gas supplied to final individual recipients in the EU. It was established that the sudden increases in natural gas purchase prices on energy resource exchanges translated into a similarly dynamic increase in the household gas fuel prices. The price data concerning Poland were compared to analogous data from other EU member states. It was established that in the period between the first half of 2021 and the first half of 2022, gas prices in the EU increased by over 34% on average (maximum of 150%). It was concluded that the household natural gas prices in Poland, established in the officially approved distribution tariffs of PGNiG SA, are substantially affected by two factors: energy resource purchase prices on the Polish Power Exchange (TGE), and purchase prices on foreign markets. The main reason for price increases was the unforeseen substantial changes in the conditions of conducting business activity by PGNiG SA in terms of gas fuel trading, resulting from the increase in high-methane natural gas purchase price at the TGE. On the other hand, the increases in purchase price of natural gas imported from EU or EFTA member states by 2021 have moderately translated into increases in prices established in officially approved tariffs. A similar effect of household natural gas price increase has also occurred in other EU member states but was not uniform. The effect depended on the volume of gas production and consumption in the given country, and on the diversity of gas sources that determined the resource’s purchase price.

The emergence of new transformational technology, known as the fourth industrial revolution, has crucially opened a new window to green economic growth. The transition to low carbon, green economy, and green sustainability has gained momentum simultaneously in developed and developing countries. The greening policy echoes the pending climate change and its entrenching disruptions. Financial technology, or FinTech seems to be a promising direction in unlocking the green dilemma; to be concrete, FinTech and the green economy are separately documented in the literature. Against this background, the current study investigates the intersection between green economic growth and FinTech by conducting a systematic-cum-bibliometric analysis of published papers in the Scopus database with the goal of first examining the role and opportunities of implementing green FinTech as a stimulus for transition towards green economic growth in African countries and, second, identifying knowledge gaps and future policy and research directions by developing an integrated framework to help African countries in the transition to green economic growth and green FinTech. The results illustrate an increasing trend in research attention towards the green FinTech concept and its relationship with green economic growth, climate change, and greening rules and standards. A deep inspection of the mined papers indicates that future research trajectories are oriented into five different mainstreams: technology and instruments in digital finance; regulation, policies, and green FinTech; climate risk mitigation through FinTech; FinTech and environmental quality; green finance and climate change mitigation. Based on these research directions, an integrated framework was conceptualised that aims to deliver green economic growth using FinTech as a vehicle of transition for African countries.