Understanding the nexus between energy sources and export performance: Evidence from emerging economies

This study investigates the role of renewable and non-renewable energy sources in exports performance of 18 emerging economies from 2000 to 2020. This is done to better elucidate the potential implications of energy transition on the export performance of emerging economies. The estimated models also control for the influences of per capita income, population, and government effectiveness. The Westerlund cointegration confirms the presence of a significant long-run relationship between the variables under consideration. In this regard, two-step System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation demonstrates that non-renewable energy consumption promotes exports in emerging economies and renewable energy use hampers it in the long run. At the same time, increase in per-capita income and population size negatively influence the exports. On the other hand, though insignificant, government effectiveness contributes positively to the export performance. The Kernel Regularized Least Squares (KRLS) estimation also confirms the reliability of these baseline findings. Potential policy suggestions for the export promotion of emerging economies are also discussed.