The impact of government ideology on energy efficiency: evidence from panel data

This paper investigates the impact of government ideology on energy efficiency using data for a panel of 23 OECD countries over the 1980-2013 period. With dynamic panel data method applied, our evidence suggests that government ideology is a significant determinant of energy efficiency. Specifically, we show that left-wing parties are associated with energy efficiency improvements. Overall, our results are robust to the two measures of energy efficiency variables, alternative measures of government ideology variables, using annual and 3-year averages of the data, the inclusion of economic and political variables, and to model specifications.