Policies Towards Energy Poverty Reduction Goal: Role of Female Political Participation and Financial Globalization

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasize the importance of energy by making affordable and clean fuel access the focus of Goal 7. Energy poverty is a widespread issue globally, particularly in developing countries. Thus, this investigation inspects the drivers of energy poverty in Brazil using data from 1997Q1 to 2022Q4. The study introduces the wavelet Zivot-Andrews (WZA) unit root test, which modifies the traditional Zivot-Andrews (ZA) test by incorporating wavelet analysis, allowing decomposition of the time series into different time scales (short-term, medium-term and long-term). This enables the WZA test to capture structural breaks and unit roots more effectively across various time scales. In addition, the study employs wavelet quantile-on-quantile regression. The results show that across all quantiles and time scales, an increase in financial globalization and economic policy uncertainty increases energy poverty. The study also shows that female political participation increases energy poverty in the short and long term. In contrast, in the medium term and across all quantiles, female political participation decreases energy poverty. Lastly, an increase in financial development decreases energy poverty across all quantiles and periods. Based on these findings, policies are suggested.