Economic Growth and Energy Consumption in Post-Communist Countries: a Bootstrap Panel Granger Causality Analysis

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to identify Granger causality between energy consumption and economic growth in post-communist countries in the period 1993 to 2011. Bootstrap panel Granger causality test was used as a research tool in order to accommodate for countryspecific heterogeneity and to avoid the problem of cross-sectional dependence. The analysis allowed for the verification of the hypothesis regarding the links between economic growth and energy consumption in nine countries. The hypotheses were confirmed: the growth hypothesis in three countries and the feedback hypothesis in one country.