Role of energy consumption preferences on human development: a study of SAARC region

A large number of studies evidenced the role of energy on growth and renewable energy as a cleaner input, which is the need of the hour as because of population and growth, the energy demand is on the rise in South Asia region. This study scrutinizes the quadratic effect of the non-renewable and renewable energy consumption mix and its impact on sustainable development while controlling for trade openness, development expenditures and industrialization. This study resorts to feasible generalized least squared model for the estimation of quadratic function for five SAARC countries between 1990 and 2017. The results show that the non-renewable-to-renewable energy mix ratio follows an inverted U-shaped relationship with HDI. Further renewable energy must be significantly higher than non-renewable energy in order to ensure that it is development promoting.

Automated summary

The study finds that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the ratio of non-renewable to renewable energy mix and Human Development Index (HDI). Furthermore, in order to promote development, renewable energy must be significantly higher than non-renewable energy.