Exploring the linkage between energy consumption and economic growth in BRICS countries through disaggregated analysis

The main objective of this study is to analyze the impact of disaggregated energy consumption (coal, natural gas, petrol, and electricity) on the economic growth of BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) from 1990 to 2020. The study implements the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) and Cross-Sectional Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag (CS-ARDL) techniques for empirical analysis. The cointegration results indicate a consistent long-term link between coal consumption, gas, petrol, electricity, and economic growth. The CS-ARDL estimates show that disaggregated energy consumption has a positive short- and long-term effect on economic growth, and the AMG approach supports these findings. These results suggest that the economic growth of BRICS countries is positively influenced by increased consumption of different types of energy sources. The panel Granger causality test result confirms the causal link between coal consumption and economic growth, electricity and economic growth, and petroleum and economic growth, supporting the feedback hypotheses, while natural gas consumption and economic growth support the neutral hypothesis. These findings suggest that energy conservation initiatives can be implemented in BRICS countries without negatively impacting economic growth.