Electricity Consumption, Employment and Real Income in Australia: Evidence From Multivariate Granger Causality Tests
Electricity Consumption, Employment and Real Income in Australia: Evidence From Multivariate Granger Causality Tests
Electricity Consumption, Employment and Real Income in Australia: Evidence From Multivariate Granger Causality Tests
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Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between electricity consumption, employment and real income in Australia within a
cointegration and causality framework. We find that electricity consumption, employment and real income are cointegrated and that
in the long-run employment and real income Granger cause electricity consumption, while in the short run there is weak
unidirectional Granger causality running from income to electricity consumption and from income to employment.
r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
0301-4215/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2003.11.010
ARTICLE IN PRESS
1110 P.K. Narayan, R. Smyth / Energy Policy 33 (2005) 1109–1116
generation resulting from the failure of regulatory Model C takes the following form:
reform is regarded as one of the main causes of the
California electricity crisis (Borenstein, 2002). Sparked Dyt ¼ k þ fyt1 þ bt þ y1 DUt
by fears of what happened in California and acting in X
k
response to a Victoria Security of Electricity Taskforce þ g1 DTt þ dj Dytj þ et : ð2Þ
Report (2000), in 2000–2001 the Victorian government j¼1
initiated a program of encouraging voluntary reductions
in electricity consumption by industry during peak Here, D is the first difference operator, et is a white noise
periods to ensure security of supply. As Australia comes disturbance term with variance s2 ; and t ¼ 1;y,T is an
under increasing international pressure to ratify the index of time. The Dyt2j terms on the right-hand side of
Kyoto protocol it is important to know what the effect of Eqs. (1) and (2) allow for serial correlation and ensure
further implementation of energy conservation policies that the disturbance term is white noise. DUt is an
along these lines will be on employment and output. indicator dummy variable for a mean shift occurring at
time TB and DTt is the corresponding trend shift
variable, where
3. Data and econometric methodology (
1 if t > TB;
DUt ¼
3.1. Data 0 otherwise:
The study employs annual time series data from 1966 and
to 1999. Total electricity consumption per capita (
(measured in kWh per capita), real GDP per capita t TB if t > TB;
DTt ¼
(1995=100) and an index of manufacturing sector 0 otherwise:
employment are from the International Energy Agency
and IMF International Financial Statistics. The period Zivot and Andrews (1992) provide asymptotic critical
for the analysis was dictated by data availability. values for their test, but it is well known that these are
Following the extant literature, all variables were not reliable in small sample sizes. Thus, we calculate
transformed into natural logs because this helps to exact critical values for our sample size of 34 observa-
induce stationarity in the variance–covariance matrix tions for model A and model C following Zivot
(Chang et al., 2001; Fatai et al., 2001). and Andrews’ (1992) methodology. We estimate an
ARMA (p; q) model for each Dyit ; with p and q
3.2. Unit root tests selected according to the Schwarz Bayesian criterion.
The implied ARMA process is then used as the
A three-stage procedure was followed to test the data generating process for generation of 5000 34-
direction of causality. In the first stage the order of observation series under the null hypothesis of a unit
integration was tested using the Augmented Dickey– root with no structural breaks. We obtain a minimum
Fuller (ADF), Phillips–Perron (PP) and Zivot and ADF statistic for each of the 5000 series. The
Andrews’ (1992) unit root tests. While one of the critical values are then constructed from this empirical
advantages of the bounds test for cointegration is that it distribution.
can be applied irrespective of whether the variables are
integrated of order zero Ið0Þ or integrated of order 1
3.3. Cointegration
Ið1Þ; to implement the Granger causality tests all
variables must be Ið1Þ: The lag length in the ADF test
The second stage involves testing for the existence of a
was selected to minimize the Schwarz Bayesian criterion,
long-run equilibrium relationship between electricity
while the bandwidth for the PP test was selected with the
consumption, real income and employment growth
Newey-West Bartlett kernel.
using the bounds test. This involves investigating the
We used two versions of the Zivot and Andrews
existence of a long-run relationship using the following
(1992) test. These are in (Zivot and Andrews (1992),
unrestricted error correction model (UECM):
terminology) model A, which allows for a one break in
the intercept of the trend function and model C, which X
n X
n
allows for one break in intercept and slope. D ln ECt ¼ aoEC þ biEC D ln ECti þ ciEC D ln GNIti
Model A has the following form: i¼1 i¼1
X
n
X
k þ diEC D ln EMti þ s1EC ln ECt1 þ s2EC ln GNIt1
Dyt ¼ k þ fyt1 þ bt þ y1 DUt þ dj Dytj þ et : ð1Þ i¼1
X
n X
n
relationship (this term is not included if the variables are
D ln GNIt ¼ aoGNI þ biGNI D ln GNIti þ ciGNI D ln ECti
i¼1 i¼1 not cointegrated) and e1t ; e2t and e3t are serially
X
n independent random errors with mean zero and finite
þ diGNI D ln EMti þ s1GNI ln GNIt1 covariance matrix. The dependent variable is regressed
i¼1 against past values of itself and other variables. The lag
þ s2GNI ln ECt1 þ s3GNI ln EMt1 þ e1t ; length P is based on the Schwarz Bayesian criterion.
ð4Þ
X
n X
n
D ln EMt ¼ aoEM þ biEM D ln EMti þ ciEM DlnGNIti 4. Empirical results
i¼1 i¼1
X
n
4.1. Order of integration and cointegration
þ diEM D ln ECti þ s1EM ln EMt1
i¼1
The results for the ADF and PP unit root tests for
þ s2EM ln GNIt1 þ s3EM ln Ect1 þ e1t : electricity consumption per capita (ln EC), real income
ð5Þ per capita (ln GNI) and employment (ln EM) are
Here, D is the first difference operator, ln EC is the log reported in Table 2. The ADF and Phillips–Perron
of per capita electricity consumption, ln GNI is the log tests give the same results. The null hypothesis that the
of per capita real income and ln EM is the log of the series contain a unit root cannot be rejected for any of
manufacturing sector employment index. The F test is the series in levels at the 5% level, but when the data are
used to determine whether a long-run relationship exists first differenced, the null of nonstationarity can be
between the variables through testing the significance of rejected for all series at the 5% level. This indicates that
the lagged levels of the variables. With small sample electricity consumption per capita, employment and real
sizes the relevant critical values potentially deviate income per capita are Ið1Þ:
substantially from the critical values reported in Pesaran The results of the Zivot and Andrews (1992) model A
et al. (2001). Thus, we calculate exact critical value and model C unit root tests and corresponding exact
bounds for T ¼ 34 with two regressors, based on 40,000 critical values are reported in Table 3. They find no
replications for the F -statistic. If the computed F additional evidence against the unit root hypothesis
statistics fall outside the critical bounds, it follows that relative to the unit root tests without a structural break.
a conclusive decision can be made regarding cointegra- In each case we are unable to reject the unit root null
tion without knowing the order of integration of the hypothesis at the 10% level or better, confirming that
regressors. the series are Ið1Þ: The break dates are statistically
significant for model A in each case. With electricity
3.4. Granger causality consumption only the break in the slope of the trend is
statistically significant in model C and neither the break
The third stage involves constructing standard Gran- in the intercept nor slope is statistically significant in
ger-type causality tests augmented with a lagged error model C for employment or real income. The statisti-
correction term in the event that the series are cally significant breaks are 1971 and 1990 (electricity
cointegrated. Where such a long-run relationship exists, consumption), 1980 (employment) and 1983 (real
Granger causality tests involve specifying a multivariate income). While 1980 was a period of strong labour
pth-order vector error correction model (VECM) as
follows: Table 2
2 3 2 3 Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) and Phillips–Perron (PP) tests for
ln ECt a1 unit roots
6 7 6 7
ð1 LÞ4 ln GNIt 5 ¼ 4 a2 5 Variables ADF statistic CV (LL) PP statistic CV (BW)
ln EMt a3 Ln ECt 1.813 3.552 (0) 2.123 3.559 (7)
2 32 3
b11i b12i b13i ln ECti Ln GNIt 2.839 3.558 (1) 2.045 3.553 (1)
Xp
6 76 7 Ln ECt 2.365 3.553 (0) 2.552 3.553 (2)
þ ð1 LÞ4 b21i b22i b23i 54 ln GNIti 5
Dln ECt 3.625 2.957 (0) 3.625 2.957 (0)
i¼1
b31i b32i b33i ln EMti Dln GNIt 2.973 2.957 (0) 2.713 2.617 (8)
2 3 2 3 Dln ECt 5.007 2.957 (0) 5.007 2.957 (0)
y e1t
6 7 6 7 Notes: CV stands for critical values, which are at the 5% level. The
þ 4 W 5½ECTt1 þ 4 e2t 5: ð6Þ
critical values are calculated from MacKinnon (1991). LL stands for
c e3t lag length and BW stands for bandwidth. The lag lengths are selected
using the Schwarz Bayseian criterion while the bandwidth is selected
In addition to the variables defined above, (12L) is using the Newey–West Bartlett kernel. Both tests were conducted
the difference operator, ECTt21 is the lagged error- including an intercept and linear deterministic trend. Tests using an
correction term derived from the long-run cointegrating intercept only were quantitatively similar.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
P.K. Narayan, R. Smyth / Energy Policy 33 (2005) 1109–1116 1113
Table 3
Zivot–Andrews test for unit roots in the presence of one structural break
Notes: denotes statistical significance at the 1% level. The critical values for the structural break dummy variables follow the asymptotic standard
normal distribution. The critical values for tf are calculated based on 5000 replications of a Monte Carlo simulation as described in the text.
Table 5 1.6
Results of Granger causality F-tests
1.2
Dependent D ln ECt D ln GNIt D ln EMt ECTt (t-statistic)
variable
0.8
D ln ECt — 2.9682 1.2445 0.0415
(0.0514) (0.2881) (4.5669)
0.4
D ln GNIt 0.8048 — 1.3221 —
(0.4472) (0.2666)
D ln EMt 0.1533 2.7710 — — 0.0
(0.8578) (0.0624)
-0.4
Note: () denotes statistical significance at the 1% and 10% levels 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98
respectively. Figures in parenthesis below D ln ECt ; D ln GNIt and
D ln EMt are probability values. CUSUM of Squares 5% Significance
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