Energy and Economic Growth: The Stylized Facts

摘要

We summarize what we know about energy and economic growth in a set of stylized facts.We combine analysis of a panel data set of 99 countries from 1971 to 2010 with review of somelonger run data. Our key result is that over the last 40 years there has been a stable cross-sectionalrelationship between energy use per capita and income with an elasticity less than unity of energy withrespect to income. This implies that energy intensity has tended to decrease in countries that havebecome richer but not in others. Over the last two centuries there has been convergence in energyintensity towards the current distribution. In the long run, per capita energy use tends to rise and,though evidence is limited, the cost share of energy declines.