Gozgor, G., & Paramati, S.R. (2021). Does Energy Diversification Cause an Economic Slowdown? Evidence from a Newly Constructed Energy Diversification Index.CESifo Working Paper, No. 9247.
Countries have made considerable efforts to diversify their energy sources from fossil fuels to renewables in the last two decades to achieve sustainable economic development. However, it is widely argued that the countries may experience sluggish economic development during the energy transition period due to structural and functional changes in the economic system. Given this backdrop, this study introduces a new measure of energy diversification. It explores its impact on economic development across the panels of low-income, high-income, European Union (EU), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and G20 countries. The study uses data from 1995 to 2018 and utilizes Nonlinear Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NPARDL) method. Our findings confirm that the major economies (including G20) realize positive economic growth with increasing long-run energy diversification. However, some countries (OECD and G20) experience negative economic growth due to energy diversification in the short term. The results also disclosed that energy diversification does not favor economic growth in low-income economies in both the short and long term. Therefore, more precautionary measures to be taken into account while diversifying energy sources.
Gozgor, G., Bilgin, M.H. & Rangazas, P. (2021). Economic Uncertainty and Fertility. CESifo Working Paper, No. 9025. Published in Journal of Human Capital, 15(3), 373-399 (Lead Article).
In this paper, we conduct an empirical study of how uncertainty alters fertility behavior. The precautionary motive for saving predicts that an increase in income uncertainty increases saving by reducing both consumption and fertility. We examine this prediction using a new measure of economic uncertainty, the World Uncertainty Index and focus on data from 126 countries for the period from 1996 to 2017. The empirical findings indicate that uncertainty decreases the fertility rate, as suggested by theory. This evidence is robust to different model specifications and econometric techniques as well as to the inclusion of various controls. The evidence also indicates that changes in uncertainty may be a factor explaining why fertility is pro-cyclical.