Interpreting the dynamic nexus between energy consumption and economic growth: Empirical evidence from Russia

Research on the nexus between energy consumption and economic growth is a fundamental topic for energy policy making and low-carbon economic developing all over the world. Russia is the third largest energy consumption country, while little research has touched upon its energy consumption issue till now, especially its energy consumption and economic growth nexus. Therefore, this paper empirically investigates the dynamic nexus of the two variables in Russia based on the state space model. And the results indicate that, first of all, on average, there does not exist any significant linear causality between Russia's energy consumption and economic growth during 1990-2008. Secondly, a time-varying long-term cointegration between them is identified, which means their equilibrium nexus indeed changes over the time. Thirdly, ever since the year 2000, Russia's effort to improve energy efficiency has attained much progress, but the recent performance of Russia's energy saving has been less than ever before. Finally, the comparison results indicate that the consistency of energy consumption and economic growth in Russia appears the worst among BRIC countries, which reflects the complexity of Russia's energy-growth nexus.