Revisiting the nexus among carbon emissions, energy consumption and total factor productivity in African countries: new evidence from nonparametric quantile causality approach

Abstract

This study aims to contribute to the existing thin body of nonlinear causality literature by applying the new hybrid nonparametric quantile causality approach. In this line, we investigate the non-linear nexus among total factor productivity, energy consumption and carbon emissions for seventeen African countries. From the results, it is remarkable that there are generally strong causalities between the variables in the middle lower, middle upper and middle quantiles. Hence, energy consumption, environmental pollution and total factor productivity are closely linked in African countries. In particular, bidirectional linkage is detected between total factor productivity and energy consumption for Angola, Benin, Botswana, Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria and Tunisia. Studying the relationship between total factor productivity and emissions again at the middle quantile bidirectional causal ordering is documented almost for all the countries. Lastly and regarding the linkage between energy consumption and carbon emissions, a strong bidirectional ordering between the two variables is confirmed for Angola, Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco, Egypt, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia. We can notice that an increase in economic development is critical for these countries; a number of regulatory policies for environmental problems and energy consumption are required during this development.