Financial Sector Development and Energy Consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Institutional Governance Matter? Dynamic Panel Data Analysis

Abstract

The failure of energy economists and planners to comprehend the dynamics and paradigm shift in the finance and institutional quality domain that drive energy use is blamed for the ongoing energy consumption concerns. Consequently, this study revisits and contributes to repositories by examining the relationship between finance-renewable energy consumption and institution-renewable energy consumption. The research question raised is: Do governance indicators moderate the impact of finance on renewable energy consumption? With panel dataset of 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa spanning from 2010 to 2020 and using political stability, voice and accountability, government effectiveness, and regulatory quality indicators of governance, the research output is as follows: (i) Financial development exerts a significant positive impact on renewable energy consumption and intensity, but the level of impact is weak (i.e., at a 10% level significant). (ii) The governance indicators significantly drag renewable energy consumption and intensity. (iii) The negative interaction between financial development and governance indicators is sufficient to worsen the weak relationship between finance and renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa. (iv) Governance threshold eroded the weak positive effect of financial development on renewable energy consumption and intensity, leading to negative synergy effect in some cases, and (v) The net effect from the moderating impact of governance indicators on finance is significantly different across model specification. The study demonstrates the undeveloped nature of finance and institutional framework in sub-Saharan Africa, considering the weak association between the key variables.