The Energy Consumption-Growth Nexus in Seven Sub-Saharan African Countries

The paper investigates the long-run and the causality relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for seven Sub-Saharan African countries during the period 1970-2007. Using the bounds testing approach to cointegration, we find that energy consumption is cointegrated with economic growth in Cameroon, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, and South Africa. Moreover, this test suggests that economic growth has a significant positive long run impact on energy consumption in these countries. Furthermore, causality tests suggest bidirectional causality between energy consumption and real GDP in Cote d'Ivoire and unidirectional causality running from real GDP to energy usage in the case of Congo.