Investigating linkages between economic growth, energy consumption and pollutant emissions in Tunisia

The aim of this study is to understand long and short-run linkages between economic growth, energy consumption and carbon emission using Tunisian data over the period 1971-2004. Cointegration procedure is used to analyze the time series properties of the series and error-correction terms were considered to test for the direction of Granger causality. Statistical findings indicate that economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emission are related in the long-run and provide some evidence of inefficient use of energy in Tunisia, since environmental pressure tends to rise faster than economic growth. The short-run analysis, provide support for causality running from CO2 emissions growth to output growth, both in the short-run and the long-run. The results provide also some support of mutual causal and feedback relationship in the long-run. In addition, the results show strong evidence of causality running from output growth to energy consumption in the short-run and mutual causality in the long-run implying that Tunisia is an energy dependent economy. From a policy perspective, policy makers in Tunisia should be mindful that a persistent decline in environmental quality may exert negative externalities to the economy.