Examining the convergence of energy consumption: comparison between oil importing versus oil exporting countries

Abstract

Abstract Convergence analysis is one way to check for the sustainability. In this study, examination of convergence is performed to check on the sustainability of energy consumption in the main oil importing versus oil exporting groups. In particular, we examined for stochastic versus beta conditional convergence. In addition, the speed of convergence is compared among countries using time series and panel data analyses. For the purpose of analysis, the generalized method of moments (GMM) and seemingly unrelated regression augmented Dicky-Fuller (SURADF) techniques are applied. The results revealed the evidences of convergence in energy consumption in two groups of countries, indicating the sustainable of energy consumption. The speed of convergence is very similar for both groups of countries. However, the speed of convergence is varying across individual countries. The main determinant contributes to energy consumption is oil price.