Assessing consensus on nexus between natural gas consumption and economic growth

Despite the growing interest in the nexus between disaggregated energy consumption and economic growth (EG) since 2000, dissension in the causality relationship between natural gas consumption (NGC) and EG has been vaguely reported at sub-country and country levels, and globally. A systematic evaluation of all NGC-EG related investigations to determine possible consensuses at these levels is lacking. This study aims to analyze and evaluate the existing consensus on the relationship between NGC and EG, both at the country level and globally, providing a comprehensive assessment of the factors that influence this nexus. Before the systematic review, survey methods were used to identify a total of 108 studies covering 128 countries, spanning 2000 to 2022. These include country-specific studies, panel studies and studies that considered countries and panels. The breadth of econometric tools used in NGC-EG studies is presented. Consensuses on cointegration, short-run and long-run causality were observed in 23, 6 and 16 countries respectively. Using panel studies, there is a consensus on cointegration of NGC and EG globally. Although one may conclude bidirectional short-run causality at the global level, no consensus on long-run causality was observed. Being a transition fuel in the pursuit of net-zero emissions, natural gas utilization will continue in the short-to mid-term, playing crucial roles in energy generation and renewable energy development, and complementing renewable energy sources. This study details the breadth of the NGC-EG nexus while streamlining the findings, and stimulating the debate for researchers and policy makers.