Economic growth and global warming effects on electricity consumption in Spain: a sectoral study.

This paper analyzes the effect of certain factors on electricity consumption in Spain at a sectoral level. An electricity consumption function has been estimated by using panel data, depending on gross value added (GVA), temperatures, capitalization, and human capital. This function is obtained for total productive electricity consumption and for the agricultural, construction, industrial, service, and public administration sectors, referring to the 17 Autonomous Communities of Spain for the 2000-2013 period. The obtained results show important sectoral differences in the effect that GVA has on electricity consumption, indicating a positive and increasing effect of temperatures above 22 °C in the total economy and in the tertiary sector, and a negative effect of temperatures below 18 °C in some sectors. These results may indicate that global warming may induce an electricity demand growth in Spain, especially related to cooling needs. The results also highlight the positive effects of capitalization in all sectors, and the negative effects of human capital, except for the public administration sector. In this context, it may be appropriate to carry out policies that mitigate this consumption growth, reinforcing energy efficiency measures, and human capital investments.

Economic growth, human capital, and energy consumption in Algeria: evidence from cointegrating polynomial regression and a simultaneous equations model.

This article aims to empirically analyze the direct and the indirect effects of human capital on energy consumption in Algeria, as well as to test the possible presence of the energy-environmental Kuznets curve (E-EKC) hypothesis, over the period 1970-2017, using cointegrating polynomial regressions (CPR) with break points, and a simultaneous equations model. The obtained results indicate that human capital directly reduces energy demand, and indirectly increases it through income and physical capital stock channels. However, the direct effect is higher than that of the indirect effect. Additionally, CPR results confirm a monotonic increasing relationship between energy use and real GDP per capita; therefore, there is no evidence of the E-EKC hypothesis. This means that increasing economic growth leads to a rise in energy consumption and, in turn, to an intensification of CO2 emissions. The results also indicate that physical capital stock per capita, urban population ratio, and real GDP per capita are positively linked to energy use per capita. In that context, it may be appropriate to adapt the energy system to the growing demand, promoting greater use of renewable energies, if emissions growth is to be contained. Investment in education and improving the quality of human capital is a good way for Algeria to reduce energy consumption and protect the environment, without negatively impacting economic growth.

An economic evaluation of public programs for internationalization: the case of the Diagnostic Program in Spain.

This paper evaluates the Diagnostic Program in Spain which is a publicly funded program to promote internationalization of companies located in Andalusia (south of Spain). The methodology used is the propensity score-matching. The treatment group consists of companies which participated in the Program until 2008. The control group has companies which planned to participate in the Program but had not done so up to that date. The response variable measures the ratio of export to total sales for each company. Four covariates have been taken into account: activity, location, sales and number of employees. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the companies that participated in the Program improved their ratio of exports to total sales by about 10 percentage points.