Brownfield, greenfield, and renewable energy consumption: Moderating role of effective governance. Issue 3 (May 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yahya, Farzan; Rafiq, Muhammad
• Is Part Of: Energy & environment. Volume 31:Issue 3(2020)
• Page Start: 405
• Page End: 423
• Publication Date: 2020-05
• Subjects: Greenfield -- renewable energy -- brownfield -- government effectivness -- foreign direct investment; Power resources -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Power resources -- Periodicals; Renewable energy sources -- Periodicals; Energy policy -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Ressources énergétiques; Politique énergétique; Energy policy -- Environmental aspects; Power resources; Power resources -- Environmental aspects; Renewable energy sources; Periodicals; 333.7
• DOI: 10.1177/0958305X19872936
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0958-305X

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of greenfield investment and brownfield investment on renewable energy consumption along with the moderating effect of government effectiveness in 68 countries over the period 2013 to 2014. In order to evaluate more holistic view of the empirical model, we further divide our data into two sub-panels based on country risk. By applying the system-GMM technique to mitigate statistical biases including endogeneity, the empirical results show that brownfield and greenfield investment positively influences renewable energy consumption in global and low-risk panel. However, there is no statistically significant effect of brownfield investment and adverse effect of greenfield investment on renewable energy consumption in low-risk countries. Results also show that effective governments promote the use of renewable energy but it does not moderate the relationship between brownfield investment and renewable energy consumption. On the other hand, government effectiveness strengthens the positive association between greenfield investment and renewable energy consumption in global and low-risk panel, while weakens the negative link between these variables in high-risk countries. Policy implications of our results are also discussed.