Revisiting the role of financial development for energy-growth-trade nexus in BRICS economies

The paper explores the energy-growth nexus by incorporating the key financial indicators in case of newly industrializing, BRICS countries. Considering the heterogeneity across the panel, the combined panel cointegration results confirm the long-run association between all the underlying variables. The overall findings suggest that despite sustainable development measures-financial indicators, economic growth and trade openness spur energy intensity in BRICS countries. The results also validate the Kuznets curve hypothesis between energy consumption and financial development and, energy consumption and trade openness. It implies that financial development and capital accumulation contribute to energy efficiency after the threshold income level. The causality analysis corroborate the regression results. In the end some policy recommendations are made. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.