The impact of wind and geothermal energy consumption on economic growth and financial development: evidence on selected countries

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the impacts of wind and geothermal energy consumption on economic growth and financial development over the period 2016:M1 and 2020:M11. The data obtained from Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal, Turkey, and the United States of America, which consume wind and geothermal energy, were utilized in the research study. To this end, after determining the cointegration relationship between the variables, the long-term elasticity coefficients were estimated by employing the FMOLS (2000) and DOLS (2001) models. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that geothermal energy consumption had a positive impact on financial development. Nonetheless, wind energy had no impact on financial development, whereas it had a negative impact on economic growth. According to the Dumitrescu–Hurlin causality test results, it was determined that a unilateral causality existed from wind and geothermal energy consumption to economic growth. These obtained findings, in favor of the conservative hypothesis, yielded important signals for investments to be made in the renewable energy sector as well as policymakers.