Abstract

The ideas behind the energy intensity turn out to be fundamental to the transition to a low-carbon society. This transition requires efforts both in low-emission technology choices and in moving away from path dependency. This entails significant costs in the short and long run for African countries. This paper analyses drivers of energy intensity in 13 West African countries focusing on education and investment over the period 1990 to 2015. Panel data technics are suitable for the analysis. After testing for stationarity and cointegration, we use the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square method (FMOLS) with cross-sectional independence and the Common Correlated Effect Pooled Mean Group approach (CCEPMG) for cross-sectional dependence. Our main findings show robust evidence that education, energy price and income above a certain threshold play an important role in improving energy intensity in the long run. By controlling for cross-sectional dependence, we find that investment and the urbanization rate become positive and statistically significant. Our empirical findings show that increasing the education level is important to improve energy use, calling for policy action encompassing both sectoral and global measures that is crucial to achieve energy efficiency.

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