Market-related Reforms and Increased Energy Efficiency in Transition Countries: Empirical Evidence

Rabindra Nepal*, Tooraj Jamasb, Clement Allan Tisdell

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

Energy efficiency improvement is a desirable response to growing climate change and security of energy supply concerns. This article studies the impacts of a varied set of macro-level market-oriented reforms as well as structural change on economy-wide measure of energy efficiency across a group of the transition countries. These countries experienced a rapid marketization process, which, since the early 1990s, transformed their economies from central planning towards market-driven models. We use a bias-corrected fixed-effect analysis technique to estimate this effect for the period 1990 to 2010. The results suggest that reforms aimed at market liberalization, financial sector and most infrastructure industries drove energy efficiency improvements. We find significant differences in improvements in energy efficiency between transitional Central European and Baltic States, South East Europe ones and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The reasons for these differences are also discussed.
Original languageEnglish
JournalApplied Economics
Volume46
Issue number33
Pages (from-to)4125-4136
Number of pages12
ISSN0003-6846
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Market reforms
  • Energy efficiency
  • Transition countries
  • Institutions

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