Renewable energy-led growth hypothesis: New insights from BRICS and N-11 economies

Despite the fact that the BRICS and N-11 economies have experienced tremendous economic growth in recent years, but required energy is mainly used from conventional sources. Therefore, policy makers have shifted their attentions towards promoting the production and consumption of renewable energy across all economic activities. Given the current situation, the goal of this study is to investigate the impact of renewable energy consumption on the economic growth of the BRICS and N-11 economies over 1995–2019 period. The study uses Augmented Mean Group and Methods of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) for empirical analysis that confirms the variation of the impacts of independent variables across different quantiles of economic growth to accomplish the said objective. The overall findings of the study indicate that renewable energy-led growth hypothesis exists in BRICS countries in AMG and at all quantiles in MMQR but surprisingly it does not exist in N-11 economies using both estimations. The study also applies [1] heterogeneous panel estimation and found that growth hypothesis exists in BRICS economies and conservation hypothesis exists in N-11 countries. Relevant policies on the basis of obtained results are also provided in the study for both groups of the countries.