Sectoral convergence in energy consumption from developing country perspective: The case of Turkey

Energy Efficiency. 2020. Vol. 13. No. 7. P. 1457–1472.

Karakaya E., Sedat Alataş, Yılmaz B.

Recent studies investigating convergence in energy consumption at the sectoral level within a country suggest that aggregate energy consumption could mask considerable differential impacts that might be observed at the sectoral level. This study aims to contribute and complement the existing convergence literature with an attempt to analyze sectoral convergence in energy consumption from the developing country perspective. To this end, we choose Turkey as a developing country and employ both the conventional unit root tests and the residual augmented least squares-Lagrange multiplier (RALS-LM) methodology to investigate stochastic conditional convergence in per capita energy consumption at the sectoral level. Our findings suggest some interesting outcomes that could be relevant from the sectoral energy consumption perspectives for developing countries. While energy consumption in Turkey shows a trending upward, the leading sectors of industry and transport energy consumption per capita diverge from the mean consumption and, therefore, lead to further increases in energy consumption and energy-related emissions. Moreover, agriculture and the other sector, whose consumption per capita values are below the mean, converge towards the mean. Overall, Turkish sectoral energy consumption trends follow developing countries’ patterns, and the empirical findings suggest that this trend is worrying from the sustainability perspective.

Keywords: Turkey, energy consumption, unit root, sectoral strategies, Convergence