The Energy Representation of World GDP

The GDP–energy relationship is considered on a global scale. We propose a model which represents world gross product as a power-law function GDP = $$g{\left(EU\right)}^{\gamma }$$ g E U γ of current energy consumption $$E$$ E and total energy $$U$$ U consumed over all previous years and materialized in the form of production infrastructure. This energy-based production function has two parameters $$g$$ g and $$\gamma$$ γ that retain their values throughout the years under study (1965–2018), and hence they can be regarded as fundamental characteristics of the world economy within the energy paradigm that considers labor and capital as energy entities. The model describes empirical data with high accuracy (error 1.2%), despite the fact that energy consumption and GDP increase greatly over the period under study. To provide a robustness check, the production function was fitted to the data for a shortened interval of 1965–2000 with a further projection until 2018, which showed a small error of 1.8% in the target interval of 2001–2018. An additional verification of the model, based on the power-law dependencies of GDP, $$E$$ E and $$U$$ U on world population, confirmed the functional form of the production function and led to almost the same parameter values as those obtained independently.