• Energy Research

In this paper, we examine the relationship between oil price and the Fiji–US exchange rate using daily data for the period 2000–2006. We use the generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) and exponential GARCH (EGARCH) models to estimate the impact of oil price on the nominal exchange rate. We find that a rise in oil prices leads to an appreciation of the Fijian dollar vis-a-vis the US dollar.

This study examines the link between foreign direct investment (FDI) and energy demand. FDI is a source of financing that allows businesses to grow. At the same time, FDI can be a source of innovation that promotes energy efficiency. Existing evidence on the impact of aggregate FDI inflows on energy consumption is scarce and inconclusive. In the current study, we disaggregate FDI inflows into mining, manufacturing, total services, and financial services components and examine the impact of these FDI flows on renewable – and non-renewable industrial energy – sources for 74 countries for the period 1985–2012. We employ a Blundell–Bond dynamic panel estimator to control for endogeneity and omitted variable biases in our panels. The results point broadly to an energy consumption-reducing effect with respect to non-renewable sources of energy and an energy consumption-augmenting effects with respect to renewable energy. We find that these effects vary in magnitude and significance by sectoral FDI.

The goal of this paper is to model the impact of oil prices on Vietnam’s stock prices. We use daily data for the period 2000–2008 and include the nominal exchange rate as an additional determinant of stock prices. We find that stock prices, oil prices and nominal exchange rates are cointegrated, and oil prices have a positive and statistically significant impact on stock prices. This result is inconsistent with theoretical expectations. The growth of the Vietnamese stock market was accompanied by rising oil prices. However, the boom of the stock market was marked by increasing foreign portfolio investment inflows which are estimated to have doubled from US$0.9 billion in 2005 to US$1.9 billion in 2006. There was also a change in preferences from holding foreign currencies and domestic bank deposits to stocks local market participants, and there was a rise in leveraged investment in stock as well as investments on behalf of relatives living abroad. It seems that the impact of these internal and domestic factors were more dominant than the oil price rise on the Vietnamese stock market.

Abstract Our study shows that links between economic growth and energy consumption (both expressed in per capita terms) differed for renewables and non-renewables for income panels over the period 1971 to 2011. Renewables are mainly found to support the neutrality hypothesis. Only renewable totals in low and lower middle income (LLMI) countries are found to drive economic growth. The feedback, growth and conservative hypotheses strongly feature with non-renewables (total and industrial). Our results are derived by linking different definitions of energy consumption with economic growth for 89 countries divided into LLMI; upper middle income (UMI); and high income (HI) panels.

In this paper we examine the long-run relationship between gold and oil spot and futures markets. We draw on the conceptual framework that when oil price rises, it creates inflationary pressures, which instigate investments in gold as a hedge against inflation. We test for the long-run relationship between gold and oil futures prices at different maturity and unravel evidence of cointegration. This implies that: (a) investors use the gold market as a hedge against inflation and (b) the oil market can be used to predict the gold market prices and vice versa, thus these two markets are jointly inefficient, at least for the sample period considered in this study.

In re-examining the nexus between energy consumption and economic growth through the predictability framework, we adopt a panel data predictive regression model to examine the possibility of growth, conservative, feedback, or neutrality hypotheses for 135 countries. A predictive regression model is fitted to panels of countries on the basis of location and level of economic development. Findings suggest strong support for the neutrality hypothesis. A developing economy panel (90 countries) favours the conservative hypothesis, although a panel of 32 lower middle-income countries suggests that energy consumption per capita predicts real GDP per capita. These forecasts could provide future policy directions.

In this paper, we propose a model that estimates the speed of energy price adjustment to its target level. We also explain the source of price adjustment. Moreover, we extract energy price bubbles and show that bubbles help explain price adjustment. Since ours is the first paper that develops an energy price adjustment model and links it to bubbles, several avenues for future research have emerged from our analysis. The first is to provide a theoretical framework for the bubbles and price adjustment mechanism. The second direction of research will be to continue the search for other potential determinants of price adjustment.

This paper examines the unit root properties of crude oil production for 60 countries employing a range of panel data unit root tests for the period 1971 to 2003. The study first employs a number of panel data tests that do not accommodate structural breaks and then proceeds to apply the Lagrange Multiplier (LM) panel unit root test with one structural break. The results of the panel data tests without a structural break are inconclusive with at best mixed support for joint stationarity. The findings from the LM panel unit root test with a structural break, however, are conclusive, suggesting that for a world panel and smaller regional-based panels, crude oil and NGL production are jointly stationary.

In this paper, we depart from the literature on electricity consumption–real GDP in that for the first time we examine the reaction of real GDP to shocks in electricity consumption. To achieve this goal, we use the structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model and examine the impact of electricity consumption shocks on real GDP for the G7 countries. We find that except for the USA, electricity consumption has a statistically significant positive impact on real GDP over short horizons. This finding implies that except for the USA, electricity conservation policies will hurt real GDP in the G7 countries.