Renewable Energy 194 (2022) 117e128

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Renewable energy and CO2 emissions: New evidence with the panel
threshold model
Chaoyi Chen a, b, Mehmet Pinar c, d, *, Thanasis Stengos e
a
MNB Institute, John von Neumann University, Budapest, 1117, Hungary
b
Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary), Budapest, 1013, Hungary
c
Business School, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancashire, L39 4QP, UK
d
Departamento de Ana
lisis Econo

mico y Economía Política, Universidad de Sevilla, Avda. Ramo

n y Cajal, 1, 41018, Sevilla, Spain
e
Department of Economics and Finance, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The increased concerns over climate change led to a large body of literature that examined the impact of
Received 21 April 2021 energy and economic growth on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per capita. The majority of the existing
Received in revised form studies employed various linear panel estimation techniques ignoring the potential nonlinear effects of
18 March 2022
energy and income on CO2 emissions per capita. To fill this gap, this study uses panel data consisting of
Accepted 16 May 2022
Available online 22 May 2022
97 countries between 1995 and 2015 and examines the nonlinear impact of renewable, non-renewable
energy consumption, economic growth on CO2 emissions per capita by using a dynamic panel threshold
model that is robust to cross-section dependence. Our findings indicate the effect of growth in renewable
JEL classification:
C24
energy consumption per capita on the growth of CO2 emissions per capita is negative and significant if
O13 countries surpass a certain threshold of renewable energy consumption. This finding mainly holds for
Q2 developed countries and countries with stronger institutions and is robust to the use of an alternative
Q43 proxy for renewable energy consumption. Our findings highlight the fact that increased renewable en-
ergy consumption would only reduce CO2 emissions per capita if and only if countries surpass a certain
Keywords:
threshold of renewable energy consumption.
Carbon dioxide emissions
Renewable energy
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
Non-renewable energy (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Economic growth
Environmental kuznets curve

1. Introduction to be the non-renewable energy consumption levels (e.g.,

Climate change is posing a tremendous existential risk for the
world today more than ever. It has been well-documented that the
main contributors to global climate change have been the historical
increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to the increased
use of fossil fuel energies and economic growth experienced during
the last century.
There has been an extensive literature that has been examining
the determinants of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to mitigate
their negative effect on climate change. Since the share of the fossil
fuel consumption in the world is 80% of total energy consumption
[1], one of the major contributors to the CO2 emissions was found
* Corresponding author. Business School, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lanca-
shire, L39 4QP, UK.
E-mail addresses: chenc@mnb.hu (C. Chen), mehmet.pinar@edgehill.ac.uk
(M. Pinar), tstengos@uoguelph.ca (T. Stengos).
Refs. [2,3]; Berkun et al., 2019 [4,5]; among many others). However,
it is expected that the world's total renewable-based power ca-
pacity will grow by 50% between 2019 and 2024 [6], which could
then result in the reduction of the environmental and health
impact of GHG emissions [7]. In this regard, a strand of literature
found that renewable energy consumption decreases CO2 emis-
sions across countries (Allard et al., 2018; Alvarez-Herranz et al.,
2018; Balsalobre-Lorente, 2018; Berkun et al., 2019 [2,8,9]; among
many others).
In related literature, the so-called environmental Kuznets Curve
(EKC) hypothesis argues that economic growth has initially brought
environmental degradation, which is then followed by a phase of
environmental improvement (see e.g., Refs. [10e12]. The EKC hy-
pothesis has been extensively investigated in studies examining the
relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions with
mixed results. Much of the existing literature has found support for
the EKC hypothesis in the form of an inverted U-shaped relationship

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2022.05.095
0960-1481/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
C. Chen, M. Pinar and T. Stengos
between CO2 emissions per capita and GDP per capita (e.g.,
Refs. [4,13e15]; among many others). On the other hand, some
studies have found no support for the EKC hypothesis [9,16], while
there is also support for an N-shaped relationship between CO2
emissions per capita and GDP per capita (e.g., see e.g., Ajmi et al.,
2015; Allard et al., 2018 [17]; Balsalobre-Lorente, 2018; [18,19]. The
latter literature argues that there is a second turning point where the
CO2 emissions per capita begin to increase again when rich countries
reach a second income level.
Most of these above-mentioned studies use different method-
ologies and data sets to investigate the impact of renewable energy
consumption, non-renewable energy consumption and GDP per
capita on CO2 emissions per capita (see section 2 for a more
detailed account of the literature), relying on a linear relationship
among these factors. In this paper, using recently developed panel
threshold models, we examine the potential nonlinear effects of
non-renewable energy consumption, renewable energy consump-
tion and GDP per capita on CO2 emissions with panel data con-
sisting of 97 countries covering the period between 1995 and 2015.
We find that renewable energy consumption is negatively associ-
ated with CO2 emissions per capita growth only for countries that
surpass a certain threshold of renewable energy consumption. In
other words, countries that exceed a certain point of renewable
energy consumption are the only ones that benefit from decreased
CO2 emissions per capita when their renewable energy consump-
tion increases.
There are theoretical reasons for a nonlinear relationship be-
tween renewable energy consumption and CO2 emissions per
capita. The initial investment in renewable energy requires a sig-
nificant up-front investment (see e.g. Refs. [20,21], and the cost of
the renewable energy consumption is relatively higher than those
of non-renewable energy [22]. On the other hand, renewable en-
ergy storage capacity is relatively lower than non-renewable en-
ergy and leads to energy supply problems in peak energy demand
periods [23,24]. For instance, analyzing 19 developed and devel-
oping countries for 1984e2007 [25], found that renewable energy
consumption does not reduce CO2 emissions. However, there have
been improvements in renewable energy consumption technolo-
gies in recent years [26]. Furthermore, the cost of renewable energy
consumption has been declining over the past years [27] and
renewable energy technologies experienced significant improve-
ments with increased research and development (R&D) in-
vestments [28]. Therefore, even though high investment costs and
storage problems may lead to a non-significant effect of renewable
energy consumption on CO2 emissions when countries use lower
renewable energy consumption, we expect that with the increased
investment and improvements in renewable energy technologies,
renewable energy consumption is a significant factor in reducing
CO2 emissions if countries surpass a certain threshold of renewable
energy consumption.
Our paper contributes to the literature in various ways. Firstly,
most of the existing studies on EKC used a quadratic term of GDP
per capita to capture its nonlinear effect on CO2 emissions per
capita (see e.g., Refs. [2,29]; among many others). The previous
literature only focuses on the nonlinear effect of income per capita
on CO2 emissions per capita, but they ignore possible nonlinear
effects of other variables on CO2 emissions. Henceforth, to test for
the potential nonlinear relationship between the determinants of
CO2 emissions per capita and CO2 emissions per capita, this paper
uses a panel threshold model, which allows us to test for all
possible nonlinear relationships compared to the benchmark linear
model. The recent developments in panel threshold regression
models (e.g. Ref. [30], would not only allow us to tackle the endo-
geneity in both regressors and threshold variables but also enable
us to capture the potential nonlinear effects of other variables on
118
Renewable Energy 194 (2022) 117e128
CO2 emissions. The model introduced by Ref. [30] was recently
used by Ref. [31] to examine the nonlinear relationship between
renewable energy consumption and economic growth. Our paper
would also use the model proposed by Ref. [31]; since other
threshold models proposed by Refs. [32e35] either rely on exoge-
nous threshold variables or are not applicable in the context of a
dynamic panel model. Secondly, most of the existing studies have
not controlled for the dynamic nature of CO2 emissions, which we
do in this paper with the use of dynamic threshold panel estimation
methods. Finally, most of the existing literature used first-
generation unit root tests, ignoring the cross-sectional depen-
dence. In this paper, we use second-generation unit root tests after
testing for cross-sectional dependence. These unit root results
determine the choice of variables to be used in the dynamic panel
threshold models.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2
provides a literature review on the determinants of CO2 emis-
sions. Section 3 provides the details of the empirical estimation
methods used. Section 4 offers the details of the data used in this
study. Finally, section 5 presents the cross-sectional dependence
and panel unit root tests, alongside the dynamic linear and
threshold estimation results, and robustness analysis. Finally, sec-
tion 6 concludes and provides policy recommendations.
2. Literature review
There is extensive literature examining the impact of non-
renewable energy consumption (NREC), renewable energy con-
sumption (REC) and income per capita on CO2 emissions. The
findings of these studies show variation based on the methodology
and sample period used. Table 1 provides a summary of some of the
studies in this area.
Most of the existing literature found support for the inverted U-
shaped EKC hypothesis (e.g., Ref. [13]; Bilgili, 2016;
[2,4,5,8,14,15,18,29,46,48,52,54]. Also in a related paper, Ulucak and
Bilgili [51] found an inverted U-shaped between economic devel-
opment and ecological footprint using ecological footprint as an in-
dicator of environmental deterioration. However, there is also
literature that found no support for EKC (e.g., Refs. [9,16,47,50,52,55].
Some studies provided some explanation for the mixed set of results.
For instance, while conducting panel data estimation, Churchill et al.
[18] found support for the inverted U-shaped EKC hypothesis, yet the
results for country-specific analysis provided mixed results sug-
gesting that the sample choice could be a factor for such variation in
the findings. Wang et al. [53] examined the effect of GDP per capita
on CO2 emissions based on the development level of the country
using different samples of countries based on their income classifi-
cation and found that the results varied accordingly. In this paper, we
will explore potential nonlinear effects of different determinants of
CO2 emissions on CO2 emissions using the dynamic threshold panel
method. The dynamic threshold model would enable us to examine
whether the economic growth effect on CO2 emissions would vary
depending on threshold variables in a data-driven way and not
through a predetermined classification as was the case with previous
studies.
Another strand of literature also highlights conflicting results
between renewable energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Most
of these studies find a negative and significant effect of renewable
energy consumption on CO2 emissions irrespective of the sample
and methodology choices (e.g., Allard et al., 2018; Alvarez-Herranz
et al., 2018 [37]; Balsalobre-Lorente, 2018 [40]; Berkun et al., 2019
[2,3,5,8,14,16,29,41e43,45e48,52]; Yang et al., 2019; [9,15]. How-
ever, there were also studies that either found a positive or an
insignificant relationship between renewable energy and CO2
emissions [25,49]. The latter papers argued that renewable energy
C. Chen, M. Pinar and T. Stengos Renewable Energy 194 (2022) 117e128

Table 1
Summary of empirical studies.

Study Period Methods Sample Findings

Allard et al. [36] 1994 Quantile regression 74 countries Support for N-shaped EKC except for the
e2012 upper-middle-income countries.
REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Alvarez-Herranz 1990 Panel least squares 17 OECD countries Support for N-shaped EKC
et al. (2018) e2012 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Anwar et al. [37] 1980 Quantile regression; FMOLS, DOLS, FE-OLS ASEAN countries (Thailand, Singapore, Support for EKC in different quatiles
e2013 Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippine, Vietnam) REC and CO2 emissions (
)
NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)
Apergis et al. [25] 1984 panel error correction mode 19 countries REC and CO2 emissions (þ)
e2007 Nuclear energy consumption and CO2
emissions (
)
Apergis [13] 1960 Quatile co-integration 15 OECD countries Support for EKC hypothesis
e2013
Azavedo et al. [38] 1980 Linear regression Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa Lagged CO2 emissions (þ)
e2011 GDP per capita (þ)
Balsalobre- 1985 Panel least squares Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK Support for N-shaped EKC
Lorente [39] e2016 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Berkun et al. 1996 PMG-ARDL 16 EU countries REC and CO2 emissions (
)
(2019) e2014 NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)
Ben Jebli et al. [40] 1990 System GMM and Granger causality 102 countries REC and CO2 emissions (
)
e2015
Bhattacharya et al. 1991 FMOLS, system GMM 85 countries NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)
[3] e2012 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Bilgili et al. [41] 1977 panel FMOLS and panel DOLS 17 OECD countries Support for EKC hypothesis,
e2010 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Cai et al. [42] 1965 ARDL G7 countries REC and CO2 emissions (
) for Germany
e2015 and US
Charfeddine and 1980 Panel vector autoregressive MENA countries REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Kahia [43] e2015
Chen et al. [29] 1980 ARDL China Support for EKC hypothesis,
e2014 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Chen et al. [44] 1995 FMOLS, DOLS Chinese regions Support and no support for EKC
e2012 hypothesis;
Effects of REC and NREC varies across
regions
Churchill et al. 1870 Common Correlated Mean Group (CCEMG) OECD countries Support for EKC for panel data
[18] e2014 Mixed results for country-specific analysis
Support for N-shaped EKC
Dogan and Seker 1980 DOLS EU countries Support for EKC hypothesis
[8] e2012 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)
Dong et al. [45] 1990 common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) 128 countries, different geographical clusters Economic growth and CO2 emissions (þ)
e2014 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Dong et al. [46] 1993 ARDL, FMOLS, DOLS China Support for EKC
e2016 Nuclear energy, REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Inglesi-Lotz and 1980 DOLS Sub-saharan countries No support for EKC
Dogan [16] e2011 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)

Lau et al. [4] 1995 FMOLS and GMM 18 OECD countries Support for EKC
e2015 NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)
Nuclear energy and CO2 emissions (
)
Liu et al. [47] 1970 VECM Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and No support for EKC
e2013 Thailand REC and CO2 emissions (
)
NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)
Ma et al. [48] 1995 FMOLS and DOLS France, Germany Support for EKC
e2015 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)
Menyah and 1960 Granger causality US REC and CO2 emissions e insignificant
Wolde-Rufael e2007 Nuclear energy consumption and CO2
[49] emissions (
)
Mikayilov et al. 1992 Johansen, ARDLBT, DOLS, FMOLS and CCR Azerbaijan No support for EKC
[50] e2013 methods
Shafiei and Salim 1980 Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, OECD countries Support for EKC,
[2] e2011 Affluence, and Technology NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)
REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Sharif et al. [5] 1990 FMOLS and heterogeneous panel causality 74 countries Support for EKC
e2015 techniques NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)
REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Sinha and 1971 ARDL India Support for EKC
Shahbaz [14] e2015 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Ulucak and Bigili 1961 Continuously updated fully modified and 15 low income, middle-income and high Support for EKC
[51] e2013 continuously updated bias corrected models income categories.
Vo et al. [52] FMOLS, DOLS, and Granger causality
(continued on next page)

119
C. Chen, M. Pinar and T. Stengos Renewable Energy 194 (2022) 117e128

Table 1 (continued )

Study Period Methods Sample Findings

1971 Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, Support and no support for EKC depending
e2014 Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru on country.
REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Wang et al. [53] 1980 Vector Error-Correction Model (VCM) and Granger 170 countries Varying results based on income per capita
e2011 causality levels of countries.
Yang et al. [54] 1995 VCM and panel-ARDL 24 countries in Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) Support for EKC
e2014 initiative REC and CO2 emissions (
)
NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)
Yao et al. [15] 1990 panel FMOLS and panel DOLS 17 countries Support for EKC
e2014 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
Zhang and Liu [55] 1995 FMOLS 10 Northeast and Southeast Asian No support for EKC
e2014 REC and CO2 emissions (
)
NREC and CO2 emissions (þ)
Zoundi [9] 1980 panel FMOLS and panel DOLS, system GMM 25 African countries No support for EKC
e1982 REC and CO2 emissions (
)

consumption did not reach a level where it can significantly

contribute to emissions reduction. Yet, there is a general consensus
in the literature on the positive and significant effect of non-
renewable energy consumption on CO2 emissions (see e.g.,
Ref. [37]; Berkun et al., 2019; [2e5,8,16,47,54].
In this paper, we will use a panel threshold model that would
enable us to provide a convincing reason why the existing literature
examining the relationship between renewable energy and CO2
emissions has found mixed results. It is possible that during the
initial stages of renewable energy usage, renewable energy storage
capacity would still be relatively low compared to traditional fossil-
fuel-based energy [25] and technology-based renewable sources
require large up-front investments [21]. It has also been argued that
these high up-front costs of renewable energy could lead to higher
prices for renewable energy [20], whereas the production cost of an
energy unit of non-renewable energy sources is cheaper than that
of renewable energy sources at the initial stages of the renewable
energy consumption [22]. Therefore, it is possible that the abate-
ment effect of renewable energy is not dominant enough at the
initial stages of renewable energy use. However, at later stages of
renewable energy consumption, it is expected that the costs of
producing renewable energy would decline with increased R&D
investment [28] and better renewable energy technologies [26].
Henceforth, we expect that the abatement effect to dominate and
renewable energy consumption will lead to lower carbon emissions
if countries use higher levels of renewable energy consumption.
Therefore, we will use renewable energy consumption as a
threshold variable and examine whether the effects of renewable
energy consumption on CO2 emissions vary based on renewable
energy consumption level.
We will use generalized methods of moments (GMM) meth-
odology, which was also used by Ben Jebli et al. [40], Bhattacharya
et al. [3], Lau et al. [4] and Zoundi [9], which can tackle potential
endogeneity problems. However, different from the above-
mentioned papers, our dynamic threshold model would also
allow us to examine the potential nonlinear effects of energy con-
sumption and economic growth on CO2 emissions when we use
renewable energy consumption as threshold variable.
3. Methodology
This study follows the dynamic panel threshold regression
model (DPTRM) proposed by Seo and Shin [30]. In line with the EKC
and energy literature (e.g. Ref. [56], to examine the relationship
between CO2 emissions per capita and energy consumption per
capita (renewable and non-renewable energy consumption per
capita) and GDP per capita, we have the following form:
120
CO2 ¼ f ðREC; NREC; YÞ (1)
where CO2 is CO2 emissions per capita; REC is the renewable en-
ergy consumption per capita, NREC is the non-renewable energy
consumption per capita, and Y is the GDP per capita.
Let Dlnð:Þ denote the first difference of the logarithm. Hence, the
dynamic panel regression model (DPRM) of equation (1) with
growth form can be written as



Dln CO2i;t ¼ aDln CO2i;t
1 þ bT Xi;t þ mi þ ht þ ei;t (2)
where subscripts i ¼ 1; …; N represents the country, t ¼ 1; …; T
indexed the time, Xi;t ¼ ½DlnðRECi;t Þ; DlnðNRECi;t Þ; DlnðYi;t ÞT , mi is
the country-specific fixed effect, ht is the time-variant fixed effect,
and ei;t is the idiosyncratic error term.
Next, to examine the potential nonlinear impact of the set of
explanatory variables on the CO2 emissions per capita growth rate,
we can extend equation (2) to a sample split form, where the group
is determined by the value of a threshold variable. The dynamic
panel threshold regression model (DPTRM) can be expressed as
follows:



Dln CO2i;t ¼ a1 Dln CO2i;t
1 þ bT1 Xi;t þ mi þ ht þ ei;t ; qi;t  g0
(3)



Dln CO2i;t ¼ a2 Dln CO2i;t
1 þ bT2 Xi;t þ mi þ ht þ ei;t ; qi;t > g0
(4)
where qi;t is the threshold variable, and g0 is the true threshold
level.
Integrating equation (3) to equation (4), we have a compact
form of the DPTRM as follows:

  
Dln CO2i;t ¼ bT Ui;t þ dT Ui;t I qi;t  g0 þ mi þ ht þ ei;t (5)
T
where Ui;t ¼ ½DlnðCO2i;t
1 Þ; XTi;t  , Ið:Þ is the indicator function and
d ¼ b1
b2 measures the level of the threshold effect. Note that, if
d ¼ 0, DPTRM reduces to DPTM.
The first-difference GMM (FD-GMM) approach is used to esti-
mate both model (2) and model (5) in order to tackle the possible
endogeneity of the regressors originating from the two-way
causation. This method was first proposed by Arellano and Bond
[57] for the DPRM and recently extended to the DPTRM by Seo and
Shin [30].
Specifically, to estimate the DPTRM, we first apply first-
C. Chen, M. Pinar and T. Stengos Renewable Energy 194 (2022) 117e128

difference on the model (5) to eliminate the time-invariant fixed constant 2010 US dollars, is obtained from the World Development
effect and have Indicators of the World Bank [59]. CO2 emissions per capita
(measured in metric tons), renewable energy consumption (REC)
Dyit ¼ bT DUi;t þ dT DUi;t ðgÞ þ Dht þ Dei;t ; (6) and non-renewable energy consumption (NREC), both are
measured in millions of kilowatt-hours, are obtained from the U.S.
where Dyit ¼ DlnðCO2i;t Þ
DlnðCO2i;t
1 Þ, DUi;t ¼ Ui;t
Ui;t
1 , Energy Information Administration [60]. In line with the existing
DUi;t ðgÞ ¼ Ui;t Iðqi;t  gÞ
Ui;t
1 Iðqi;t
1  gÞ, Dht ¼ ht
ht
1 , and literature, we use the REC per capita and NREC per capita as proxies
Dei;t ¼ ei;t
ei;t
1 . for renewable and non-renewable energy consumption
Then, we use the GMM approach to estimate model (6) by [29,44,46,61e63]. Therefore, we used the population data from the
employing the orthogonal condition EðDeit zit Þ ¼ 0 for each t ¼ World Development Indicators to construct renewable and non-
t0 ; …; T and i ¼ 1; …; N, where zit is a valid m by one vector of in- renewable energy consumption per capita values. We also control
strument variable and 2 < t0 < T. Our set of instruments includes all for trade openness (see e.g. Refs. [64e66], urbanization (see e.g.
the available lags in the difference of the endogenous variables up Refs. [64,67e69], and oil prices [61,70,71] as additional control
to five periods before the period t. variables as they are found to be important determinants of the CO2
T emissions. Trade openness is measured as the sum of the exports
Let q ¼ ½bT ; dT ; gT and q0 ¼ ½bT0 ; dT0 ; g0  be the true parameter
and imports as a percentage of GDP per capita, and urbanization is
set. We consider the following m-dimensional column vector of the
the percentage of the population living in urban areas, where both
P
n
sample moment conditions gn ðqÞ ¼ n1 gi ðqÞ, where variables are obtained from the World Development Indicators of
i¼1 the World Bank [59]. Finally, oil prices (measured using the spot
2  3 price on Brent crude oil) from the Statistical Review of World En-
zit0 Dyit0
bT DUi;t0
dT DUi;t0 ðgÞ
Dht0 ergy of the British Petroleum [72], which is deflated with the
gi ðqÞ ¼ 4 …   5 consumer price index (CPI) from the World Development
T T
ziT DyiT
b DUi;T
d DUi;T ðgÞ
DhT Indicators.
Table 2 provides a correlation matrix among four variables. CO2
for all i ¼ 1; …; N. Note that, for a short T panel, the orthogonal emissions is positively correlated with all the variables with the
condition implies Eðgi ðq0 ÞÞ ¼ 0. exception of oil prices. Similarly, relatively richer countries tend to
Therefore, we can obtain the GMM estimator as have higher REC and NREC per capita, trade openness and
urbanization.
q^ ¼ argminq2Q gn ðqÞT Wn gn ðqÞ
5. Results
However, as the sample moment condition is not continuous in
g, we adopt a grid search algorithm. Given a threshold level g,
Prior to our linear dynamic panel regressions and dynamic panel
model (6) is linear in b and d. Therefore, we can apply GMM esti-
threshold regression analysis, we first check whether there is any
mation for a linear model to obtain b^ðgÞ and ^
dðgÞ. Substituting the cross-sectional dependence of the variables used. Most of the
slope estimator, b ^ðgÞ, back to our GMM objective function,
^ðgÞ and d existing studies that use conventional panel methods fail to test for
we then can obtain the threshold estimator the cross-sectional dependence, and if such dependence exists, it is
important to use second-generation panel methods to account for
T
g^ ¼ argming2Qg gn ðq^ðgÞÞ Wn gn ðq^ðgÞÞ; the cross-sectional dependence. Therefore, we will use panel unit
root tests to determine whether to use the levels or the first dif-
^ðgÞ ¼ ½b
^ðgÞT ; ^ ferences (growth) of the variables. The test results on the cross-
where q dðgÞT ; gT . The estimators of the slope pa-
sectional dependence and panel unit root tests would then
^ ^ ^ Þ and d
rameters are b ¼ bðg ^ ¼^ dðg^ Þ. As usual, we apply two-step enable us to choose the specifications required to carry out the
estimation to obtain the optimal GMM estimator. The two-step linear and threshold GMM estimations.
optimal GMM estimator can be obtained as:
Step 1. we estimate the model with Wn as an identity matrix and 5.1. Cross-sectional dependence and panel unit root tests
collect the residuals, Dei;t .
The earlier literature that examined the determinants of the CO2
Step 2. we construct the new weighting matrix, emissions mostly used the first generation of panel unit root tests
" ! !T #
1 (see, e.g., Fahrani and Shahbaz, 2014 [2,9,73,74]; among others),
1X n
1X n
1X n
which are based on the cross-sectional independence assumption
Wn ¼ g ðqÞgi ðqÞT
g ðqÞ gi ðqÞ :
n i¼1 i n i¼1 i n i¼1 (see e.g. Refs. [75e79], and would suffer from size distortions if
possible cross-sectional dependence was to be ignored [80].
Then, we estimate the model with the new weighting matrix. Therefore, recent papers started to examine the cross-sectional
Finally, we employ a sup-Wald test proposed by Seo and Shin [30] dependence (see, e.g. Refs. [8,18], and tackle the issue of cross-
to test the presence of a threshold effect. As suggested by Seo and sectional dependence with the use of second-generation panel
Shin [30], following Hansen [58], we use a bootstrapping approach unit root tests (e.g., the cross-sectionally augmented Im-Pesaran-
to generate critical values. Shin (CIPS) unit root test proposed by Pesaran [81]).
Henceforth, in line with Dogan and Seker [8] and Churchill et al.
4. Data [18], before proceeding with the dynamic panel regression analysis,
we first examine the presence of cross-sectional dependence by
To investigate the role of GDP per capita and energy consump- using the cross-section dependence test of Pesaran [82]. Further-
tion per capita (i.e., renewable energy consumption per capita and more, to account for the presence of cross-sectional dependence in
non-renewable energy consumption per capita) on CO2 emissions the variables, we also carried out the cross-sectionally augmented
per capita, we collected data for 97 countries covering the period Im-Pesaran-Shin (CIPS) unit root test proposed by Pesaran [81].
between 1995 and 2015. GDP per capita, which is measured in Table 3 presents the cross-sectional dependence test and CIPS unit
121
C. Chen, M. Pinar and T. Stengos Renewable Energy 194 (2022) 117e128

Table 2
Correlation matrix.

CO2 emissions pc GDP per capita REC per capita NREC per capita Oil price Urbanization Trade

CO2 emissions pc 1
GDP per capita 0.8936*** 1
REC per capita 0.3608*** 0.4790*** 1
NREC per capita 0.9731*** 0.8752*** 0.3948*** 1
Oil price
0.0846***
0.0898***
0.0027
0.0618*** 1
Urbanization 0.8260*** 0.7945*** 0.3398*** 0.8374***
0.0453** 1
Trade 0.3098*** 0.2605*** 0.0867*** 0.2859*** 0.0610*** 0.2061*** 1

Notes: Total number of observations is 2037 for the set of variables used, and all variables are in logarithms. ***, **, * represent that correlation coefficient is significantly
different from zero at the 1%, 5% and 10% levels, respectively.

Table 3
Cross-section dependence and panel unit root tests.

CO2 emissions pc GDP per capita REC per capita NREC per capita Oil price Urbanization Trade openness

Cross-section dependence test statistic 14.45*** 38.26*** 9.17*** 18.39*** 1.753* 163.39*** 52.31***
Unit root tests
Level
0.909
0.820
1.150
0.698
1.467*
1.120
1.278
First difference
3.701***
2.865***
4.194***
3.904***
3.569***
1.607**
3.576***

Notes: All variables are in logarithms. ***, **, * specify significance at the 1%, 5% and 10% level. Cross-section dependence test of Pesaran [82] used where under the null
hypothesis of cross-sectional independence, the statistic is distributed as a two-tailed standard normal. The unit root tests (i.e., CIPS test of Pesaran [81]) include two lags.

root test results. Table 4

Our findings suggest that the null hypothesis of cross-sectional Dynamic linear model estimation results.

independence is strongly rejected at the 1% significance level for all Variables

the variables considered (i.e., CO2 emissions per capita, GDP per
0.5120***
DlnðCO2t
1 Þ
capita, REC per capita and NREC per capita, urbanization and trade (0.0000)
openness), except for oil prices, where the cross-sectional inde- DlnðRECt Þ 0.0311
pendence is rejected at the 10% level. As a result, we use the second- (0.4885)
DlnðYt Þ
0.0911
generation panel unit root test of Pesaran [81] for the levels and the
(0.6072)
first-order differences of the variables. We fail to reject the null DlnðNRECt Þ 0.1569***
hypothesis of the unit root at the 10% significance level for the (0.0010)
levels of the variables (with the exception oil prices); however, the DlnðOilt Þ 0.1493
null hypothesis of non-stationarity is rejected at the 1% significance (0.1706)
level for all of the variables expressed in first-differences (with only DlnðUrbant Þ 5.0007
(0.2415)
exception that non-stationarity of urbanization is rejected at the DlnðTradet Þ 0.1358**
5%). Therefore, based on the cross-sectional dependence and panel (0.0291)
unit root tests, we find that the variables are stationary in first Observations 1746
differences. We proceed to use the first differences of variables in Notes: Notes: ***, ** and * present that coefficient is significantly different from
the GMM estimation methods that follow. zero at the 1%, 5% and 10% levels, respectively. The lag length is one. P-values are
provided in brackets. The dependent variable is the growth in CO2 emissions per
capita.
5.2. Dynamic linear and threshold model estimation results

In this section, we first present the results obtained with the

long-run linear model estimation method, which is given in (2).
Table 4 provides the results from the linear specifications where
estimates are obtained by using the dynamic panel regression
model. The linear model findings suggest that three factors are
significant in explaining the growth in CO2 emissions. We found
that countries with a higher growth of CO2 emissions per capita in
the earlier periods tend to have relatively lower CO2 emissions per
capita growth in subsequent periods. This finding is in line with the
previous literature that used dynamic GMM models (see e.g.,
Refs. [3,4,9]. Bhattacharya et al. [3], Lau et al. [4], and Zoundi [9]
considered lagged CO2 emissions per capita levels in their analysis,
and the coefficient of the lagged CO2 emissions per capita was
positive but lower than one, indicating that growth of CO2 emis-
sions per capita declined over time. Our findings are in line with the
earlier literature suggesting that the growth of CO2 emissions per
capita declined over time. The second significant factor in the linear
model is the growth in non-renewable energy consumption, which
is positively and significantly associated with the growth of CO2
emissions per capita, which also agrees with previous results in the
literature (e.g., see e.g., Berkun et al., 2019; [2e5,8,16,47]. Finally, we
found that the growth in trade openness leads to increased CO2
emissions per capita growth. This finding is also in line with the
existing literature where increased trade openness led to higher
economic activity (see e.g. Ref. [83], leading to increased CO2
emissions per capita (see e.g., Ref. [84]. However, with the linear
model, growth in income per capita, renewable energy consump-
tion, oil prices and urbanization are not significant in explaining
CO2 emissions per capita growth.
The lack of significance of some of the key determinants of CO2
emissions in the linear model may be due to the existing nonlinear
relationship between these variables and CO2 emissions per capita
growth. To test for the potential non-linearity between CO2 emis-
sions per capita and its determinants, we pursue the estimation
method presented in (5) using renewable energy consumption per
capita as threshold variable. The results are shown in Table 5. We
reject the null hypothesis of a linear model at the 1% significance
level as the SupWald p-value is equal to zero. Columns (1) and (2) of
Table 5 offer the low and high regimes, highlighting the linear

122
C. Chen, M. Pinar and T. Stengos
Table 5
Dynamic panel threshold regression results.
Threshold Variable REC
Threshold Estimate 1.4759***
(1)
Low
DlnðCO2t
1 Þ
0.5335***
(0.0000)
DlnðRECt Þ 0.0797
(0.1659)
DlnðYt Þ 0.2134
(0.3429)
DlnðNRECt Þ 0.1405**
(0.0296)
DlnðOilt Þ 0.0902
(0.3290)
DlnðUrbant Þ 7.7671
(0.1194)
DlnðTradet Þ 0.1629**
(0.0396)
SupWald P value 0.0000
SupWald Statistic 48.1683
Observations 1231
*** significantly different from zero at the 1% level, **, significantly different from
zero at the 5% level, *, significantly different from zero at the 10% level. This table
provides estimations of the dynamic panel threshold model using FD-GMM method.
The moment conditions used are listed in (). The lag length is one. P-values are
provided in brackets. The number of thresholds is one.
relationship between explanatory variables and CO2 emissions per
capita growth when ln(REC) is less and higher than 1.4759,
respectively. The findings with the threshold model suggest that
growth of renewable energy consumption per capita has a signifi-
cant and negative effect on the CO2 emissions per capita growth for
countries that use relatively higher renewable energy consumption
per capita (see column 2 of Table 5). A percentage increase in
renewable energy consumption per capita growth decreases the
growth in CO2 emissions per capita by 0.33%. On the other hand, we
found that the effect of growth in renewable energy consumption
per capita on CO2 emissions per capita is not significant for coun-
tries that consume relatively lower levels of renewable energy per
capita.
Our findings suggest that the relationship between growth of
REC per capita and growth of CO2 emissions per capita is nonlinear
and depends on the amount of renewable energy used. The results
provide an explanation on why the previous literature found mixed
and contradicting results about the relationship between REC and
CO2 emissions per capita. Our findings have also an intuitive
explanation. Since the initial investment in renewable energies is
expensive and any additional costs are passed on to consumers
[20,21], countries that invest little in renewable energy observe
that the abatement effect of renewable energy is not dominant at
the initial stages of its use. However, with increased use, the unit
cost of renewable energy is reduced with increased R&D invest-
ment in renewable energy technologies, and as such, we observe a
negative and significant effect of the growth of renewable energy
consumption per capita on CO2 emissions per capita growth.
Beyond the effect of renewable energy consumption on CO2
emissions, the effect of non-renewable energy consumption
growth on CO2 emissions per capita growth is relatively higher for
those countries that use more renewable energy consumption per
capita compared to the countries that use less renewable energy
(i.e., the size of the coefficient on non-renewable energy in column
(2) is greater than that of column (1)). Similarly, the growth of trade
openness has a larger positive coefficient for countries that use
more renewable energy than those that use relatively lower
renewable energy consumption. This could be due to the fact that
Renewable Energy 194 (2022) 117e128
increased trade activity leads to higher economic activity, and an
additional increase in production could only be accommodated
with the increased non-renewable energy consumption. Finally, we
found that lagged CO2 emissions per capita growth no longer plays
a significant role in countries with higher renewable energy per
(2)
capita usage.
High
0.0513
5.3. Robustness analysis
(0.5684)

0.3310***
(0.0011) To examine the robustness of the findings of the paper, we carry

0.4045 out additional analysis in this section. The existing literature found
(0.2677) that the countries with better institutional quality tend to use a
0.6925***
higher proportion of renewable energy consumption (see e.g.,
(0.0000)
0.0429 Refs. [85e89]; among others). Furthermore, countries with better
(0.6398) institutional quality tend to have lower CO2 emissions per capita
3.9461 (see e.g., Refs. [90e92]; among others). Furthermore, existing
(0.5623) studies also carry out their analysis by dividing their samples into
0.4741***
developing and developed country groups (see e.g.,
(0.0040)
Refs. [53,65,93,94]. Therefore, we carried out our analysis using
subsamples of our country samples.
515 The democracy score from the Polity IV [95] is used as a proxy
for democratic institutions to split the countries into two groups:
democratic countries vs. less democratic countries. The Polity IV
democracy score ranges between
10 and 10 representing fully
autocratic and democratic institutions, respectively. Countries with
an average score of 8 or above between 1995 and 2015 are
considered democratic countries, and the rest are considered less
democratic countries. Furthermore, we use the World Bank's clas-
sification to distinguish between developed and developing coun-
tries. Countries that fall into the high-income classification of the
World Bank classification are considered the developed country
sample, and the rest of the countries are considered developing
country sample. Appendix B provides the countries that fall into
different country classifications. We first re-estimate the baseline
results by using only country samples that fall into four different
classifications (i.e., countries with stronger institutions, countries
with weaker institutions, developed and developing country sam-
ples). We find that the REC per capita is a significant threshold
variable with three of the sample classifications with the exception
of the countries with weaker institutions. Table 6 gives the results
for three country classifications (i.e., countries with stronger in-
stitutions, developed and developing country samples) where the
REC per capita is a significant threshold variable at the 1% level. Our
findings align with the baseline results when we use the country
sample with stronger institutions and developed country samples.
For countries that surpass a certain threshold of REC per capita, the
coefficients of the growth of REC per capita on CO2 emissions are
negative and significant when these countries have stronger in-
stitutions and belong to the developed group. For developing
countries, even though the coefficient sign of REC per capita growth
is similar to the other country samples in the high regime, the co-
efficient of REC per capita growth is not significant in both low and
high regimes. Overall, our findings suggest that nonlinear rela-
tionship between REC per capita growth and CO2 emissions per
capita growth still holds in the developed country sample and
countries with stronger institutions.
With respect to the other explanatory variables, we find that the
sizes of the coefficients of income per capita and NREC per capita
growth are relatively larger if countries surpass the REC threshold
consumption levels. Similar to the baseline findings, growth in
trade openness is positively associated with the CO2 emissions per
capita growth in some specifications. Furthermore, even though an
increase in urbanization was not significant with the linear model
and threshold model with the full sample size, the growth of ur-
banization has a significant effect on CO2 emissions per capita
123
C. Chen, M. Pinar and T. Stengos Renewable Energy 194 (2022) 117e128

Table 6
Dynamic Panel Threshold Regression Results when REC per capita is used as a threshold variable with different country classifications.

Data set used Country sample with stronger Developed country sample Developing country sample
institutions

Threshold Estimate (lnREC) 1.9092*** 1.9977***
0.2556***

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Low High Low High Low High

DlnðCO2t
1 Þ
0.3493***
0.2515***
0.3839***
0.2588***
0.6833***
0.3810***

(0.0000) (0.0001) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000)
DlnðRECt Þ
0.0424
0.3067***
0.1214
0.0407*** 0.1493
0.0452
(0.4211) (0.0000) (0.5017) (0.0000) (0.1171) (0.5121)
DlnðYt Þ 0.4657*** 0.9942*** 0.5209*** 0.5287*** 0.5743* 1.0495***
(0.0028) (0.0020) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0588) (0.0000)
DlnðNRECt Þ 0.3943*** 0.5382*** 0.6035*** 1.0812*** 0.0079 0.2025***
(0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.9314) (0.0014)
DlnðOilt Þ 0.0211
0.0087 0.0244
0.0106 0.0929
0.0597
(0.6326) (0.8653) (0.6371) (0.4649) (0.3887) (0.6147)
DlnðUrbant Þ 11.2490** 8.1870
11.5760**
3.3782
1.5839 7.3483
(0.0103) (0.1437) (0.0135) (0.1886) (0.7241) (0.1269)
DlnðTradet Þ 0.2290***
0.0357 0.1148
0.1293
0.0476 0.5017***
(0.0016) (0.7954) (0.2458) (0.8000) (0.6594) (0.0000)
SupWald P value 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
SupWald Statistic 55.5425 54.9943 56.5613
Observations 594 216 491 175 286 794

*** significantly different from zero at the 1% level, **, significantly different from zero at the 5% level, *, significantly different from zero at the 10% level. This table provides
estimations of the dynamic panel threshold model using FD-GMM method. The moment conditions used are listed in (). The lag length is one. P-values are provided in brackets.
The number of thresholds is one.

growth. For countries with stronger institutions that use REC per
capita below a given threshold (column 1 of Table 6), an increase in
urbanization leads to higher CO2 emissions per capita growth. On
the other hand, in developed countries that use REC per capita
below a threshold (column 3 of Table 6), an increase in urbanization
leads to lower CO2 emissions per capita growth. As discussed by
Salahuddin et al. [96], urbanization has both positive and negative
effects on CO2 emissions. Increased urbanization could lead to
increased energy consumption, which then increases CO2 emis-
sion. At the same time, urbanization would reduce the energy in-
tensity [97,98], which could reduce CO2 emissions. Therefore, the
existing literature found both positive and negative effects of
urbanization on CO2 emissions.
We also carry out the second set of robustness analyses by using
different proxies for REC and NREC. The existing literature also used
renewable energy consumption as a percentage of the total energy
consumption as a proxy for REC [99e102]. Therefore, we use the
REC as a percentage of the total energy consumption in our analysis.
For the NREC, we use the nonrenewable energy intensity (i.e.,
nonrenewable energy consumption per $1,000 GDP).
Renewable energy consumption as a percentage of the total
energy consumption is relatively higher in most of the African
countries. For instance, more than 80% of the energy consumption
in Malawi, Cameroon, Madagascar, Burkina Faso, Chad, Rwanda,

Table 7
Dynamic Panel Threshold Regression Results when REC as a percentage of total energy consumption is used as a threshold variable with different country classifications.

Threshold Estimate (lnREC) Country sample with stronger Developed country sample Developing country sample
institutions

3.0078*** 3.1198*** 3.6167***

Low High Low High Low High

DlnðCO2t
1 Þ
0.2877***
0.3845***
0.3175***
0.3948***
0.1705**
0.5445***

(0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0432) (0.0000)
DlnðRECt Þ
0.0149
0.4049***
0.0152
0.4243*** 0.0067
0.1701
(0.7902) (0.0000) (0.5017) (0.0000) (0.9258) (0.4613)
DlnðYt Þ 0.8667*** 0.9513*** 1.3591*** 0.9885*** 0.7208*** 0.3495
(0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0093) (0.2795)
DlnðNRECt Þ 0.7066*** 0.1571*** 0.7957*** 0.3129*** 0.2459*** 0.1514**
(0.0000) (0.0090) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0000) (0.0447)
DlnðOilt Þ 0.0168 0.0152 0.0179
0.0286 0.2365 0.2573
(0.7052) (0.7390) (0.6371) (0.4649) (0.1917) (0.1352)
DlnðUrbant Þ 9.3729**
0.0422
12.8480**
5.0094
2.5428 4.8765
(0.0187) (0.9921) (0.0135) (0.1886) (0.5990) (0.3707)
DlnðTradet Þ 0.2152***
0.0002 0.0670
0.0156 0.2466** 0.1165
(0.0013) (0.9975) (0.2458) (0.8000) (0.0131) (0.2409)
SupWald P value 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
SupWald Statistic 91.2132 109.5117 49.0229
Observations 498 312 496 170 538 542

*** significantly different from zero at the 1% level, **, significantly different from zero at the 5% level, *, significantly different from zero at the 10% level. This table provides
estimations of the dynamic panel threshold model using FD-GMM method. The moment conditions used are listed in (). The lag length is one. P-values are provided in brackets.
The number of thresholds is one.

124
C. Chen, M. Pinar and T. Stengos
Tanzania, Bhutan, Uganda is obtained from renewable energy
sources between 1995 and 2015. However, the share of the
renewable energy mix in these countries has declined over time.
For instance, Tanzania's renewable energy consumption used to be
93% of the total energy consumption in 1995, which was declined to
83% in 2015. On the other hand, most of the developed countries
increased their renewable energy mix between 1995 and 2015. For
instance, 2% of the total energy consumption was obtained from
renewable sources in Germany in 1995, but that percentage is
increased to 15% in 2015. Similar trend is observed for most
developed countries, including Belgium and the United Kingdom
(1% in 1995 vs. 9% in 2015).
When we carry out our dynamic threshold model to four
different country sample, when renewable energy consumption as
a percentage of total energy consumption is used as a threshold
variable, we reject the linear model at the 1% level for the three-
country samples: countries with stronger institutions, developed
and developing country samples. However, for the less democratic
countries, the linear model is not rejected. Table 7 provides the
results for three samples where the linear model is rejected. The
threshold levels for the country sample with strong institutions,
developed and developing country samples are 3.0078, 3.1198 and
3.6167 (i.e., 20.2%, 22.6%, 37.2% of final energy consumption is ob-
tained from the renewable energy sources), respectively. Our
findings are similar to those reported in Table 6. In particular, if
countries with stronger institutions and developed countries
consume more than 20.2% and 22.6% of the energy from renewable
resources, 1% growth in REC reduces the growth of CO2 emissions
per capita by 0.40% and 0.42%, respectively. However, if countries
use less than these threshold levels, the growth in REC does not
reduce CO2 emissions per capita growth.
Overall, our baseline findings are robust to different country
sample classifications and the use of a different proxy for renewable
energy consumption. In particular, countries with stronger in-
stitutions and developed countries are the ones that would benefit
from consuming higher levels of renewable energy to meet their
commitments to reduce CO2 emissions.
6. Conclusion and policy implications
One of the main contributors to global climate warming has
been CO2 emissions and as a result, there has been extensive
literature examining its determinants. The majority of studies have
used linear models to examine the role of energy consumption
(non-renewable and renewable energy consumption), trade
openness, urbanization, oil prices and economic growth on CO2
emissions per capita, which resulted in mixed and conflicting
findings. To provide an explanation for these conflicting results in
the literature, we use data from 97 countries between 1995 and
2015 to examine the potential nonlinear effects of energy con-
sumption, trade openness, urbanization, oil prices and economic
growth on CO2 per capita emissions with the use of dynamic
threshold models. We found that the relationship between
renewable energy consumption growth and CO2 emissions per
capita growth is only significant and negative if countries consume
higher levels of renewable energy. This result provides an expla-
nation for the mixed and conflicting findings of the previous
125
Renewable Energy 194 (2022) 117e128
literature. We also carried out our analysis using different country
clusters and found that this finding is robust for countries with
stronger institutions and developed countries. Similarly, the find-
ings are robust to the use of alternative proxies for renewable en-
ergy consumption.
Our results also provide valuable policy implications. Even
though renewable energy consumption does not lead to a decrease
in the growth of per capita CO2 emissions for some countries at the
initial stages of its use, in the long-term, if governments were to
increase using renewable energy and surpass a certain threshold
that would certainly contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Chaoyi Chen: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis,
Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing e
original draft, Writing e review & editing. Mehmet Pinar:
Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation,
Methodology, Project administration, Writing e original draft,
Writing e review & editing. Thanasis Stengos: Conceptualization,
Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project
administration, Writing e original draft, Writing e review &
editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
Mehmet Pinar gratefully acknowledges the financial support
from the Research Investment Fund of Edge Hill University (grant
number: 1PINAR17). Thanasis Stengos acknowledges the financial
support by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada (grant number: 4301).
Appendix A. Country list (97)
Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh,
Belgium, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina
Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El
Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia, Eswatini, Finland, France,
Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala,
Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel,
Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Korea, Latvia,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania,
Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New
Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland,
Portugal, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal,
Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan,
Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Uganda,
United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay.
C. Chen, M. Pinar and T. Stengos Renewable Energy 194 (2022) 117e128

Appendix B Appendix B (continued )

Different country classifications.
Institutions classification Income classification
Institutions classification Income classification
Portugal More democratic Developed
Albania Less democratic Developing Romania More democratic Developing
Algeria Less democratic Developing Russian Federation Less democratic Developing
Australia More democratic Developed Rwanda Less democratic Developing
Austria More democratic Developed Saudi Arabia Less democratic Developed
Azerbaijan Less democratic Developing Senegal Less democratic Developing
Bangladesh Less democratic Developing Singapore Less democratic Developed
Belgium More democratic Developed Slovak Republic More democratic Developed
Benin Less democratic Developing Slovenia More democratic Developed
Bhutan Less democratic Developing South Africa More democratic Developing
Bolivia More democratic Developing Spain More democratic Developed
Botswana Less democratic Developing Sri Lanka Less democratic Developing
Brazil More democratic Developing Sudan Less democratic Developing
Bulgaria More democratic Developing Sweden More democratic Developed
Burkina Faso Less democratic Developing Switzerland More democratic Developed
Cameroon Less democratic Developing Tanzania Less democratic Developing
Canada More democratic Developed Thailand Less democratic Developing
Chad Less democratic Developing Togo Less democratic Developing
Chile More democratic Developed Turkey Less democratic Developing
China Less democratic Developing Uganda Less democratic Developing
Colombia Less democratic Developing United Kingdom More democratic Developed
Costa Rica More democratic Developing United States More democratic Developed
Cyprus More democratic Developed Uruguay More democratic Developed
Czech Republic More democratic Developed
Denmark More democratic Developed
Dominican Republic Less democratic Developing References
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