How do digital government, circular economy, and environmental regulatory stringency affect renewable energy production?

Renewable energy is widely acknowledged as the most viable solution to deal with the issues of climate change and energy security risks. Previously, the studies focused on the traditional macroeconomic determinants of renewable energy production while ignoring novel factors such as digital government, circular economy, and environmental regulatory stringency. Therefore, our main focus is to examine the impact of digital government, circular economy, and environmental regulatory stringency on renewable energy production. This nexus is analyzed using the 2SLS, GMM, and smoothed instrumental variable quantile regression techniques. The 2SLS, GMM, and smoothed instrumental variable quantile regression results underscore the significance of digital government and circular economy as the primary contributors to renewable energy production. Meanwhile, the smoothed instrumental variable quantile regression results show that environmental regulatory stringency significantly hurts renewable energy production. Thus, policymakers must focus on the digitalization of the government sector alongside promoting circular economy practices to boost renewable energy production.