The Role of Managerial Capacity and Education and Skills in Driving the Energy Transition

This paper pioneers an integrated assessment of human capital (education and skills), managerial capacity, financial development, and gender equality as drivers of the energy transition (ET). Leveraging quarterly observations from 2000Q1 to 2023Q4, we deploy a novel time-varying frequency quantile regression approach to uncover time-varying, frequency-specific, and distribution-sensitive effects. We find that economic growth increasingly hinders ET after ~2010, whereas education and skills, together with managerial capacity, bolster ET across horizons; gender equality remains a positive contributor, peaking at the median quantile and when ET is high. Financial development generally supports ET, though short- to medium-run impacts turn negative around 2010–2016 and taper when complementary capacities are scarce. Trade openness is predominantly negative. Quantile Granger causality indicates regime-dependent leadership, with trade dominating the lower tail, finance underpinning the median, and human capital leading the upper tail—insights that guide the sequencing of skills, governance, and finance reforms. Based on these findings policies, are suggested.