The interdependence between energy consumption and economic growth in the Polish economy in the last decade

The main aim of this contribution is an analysis of the causal relationship between the total energy consumption in the Polish economy and GDP. In order to assure the correctness of computations a third variable – employment – was included in the dataset. Calculations performed for the period Q1 2000 to Q4 2009 by means of recent econometric techniques indicated the existence of a significant causal relation from total energy consumption to GDP. In addition, some other causalities between employment and GDP for short– and long–run term were detected, which provided a basis for claiming that changes of energy use in Poland are related in the sense of Granger causality to the employment. Because of the relatively small dataset and possible problems with the proper application of asymptotic methods, we additionally applied bootstrap critical values. The results of both methods were generally in line with each other. The results have important policy implications. The statistically significant causality from energy consumption to GDP means that energy is a very important factor in economic growth and therefore that energy policy in Poland cannot be neutral with respect to GDP growth.