Energy insecurity: An obstacle on the way of South Asian technological innovation and economic growth

Energy insecurity: An obstacle on the way of South Asian technological innovation and economic growth

Consequences of energy insecurity for the economy have recently received significant attention deterring the gross domestic growth of an economy in a number of countries. This paper offers a cutting-edge analysis of the relationship that exists between energy insecurity and economic growth in the SAARC states during 1995-2018, with the employment of a novel and comprehen¬sive approach, two proxies of energy insecurity have been constructed to address both the supply and demand sides of the energy insecurity, the data is presented in a unified measuring unit for optimal accuracy. An extended“Cob-Douglas production”function is employed for the empirical analysis. The feasible generalized least squares method is used to deal with heterogeneous data, cross-section correlations, and auto-correlation, that produce robust results. The study emphasized that energy insecurity is one of the hurdles in the way of economic growth, implying that the growing disparity between energy supply and demand poses a risk to the South Asian region’s ability to experience sustained economic growth and technological innovation. The results are insensitive and robust to diverse econometric practices applied and findings are extremely pertinent to decision-makers and stakeholders in the energy industry because they make a strong argument for taking action to solve the growing issue of energy insecurity in the SAARC region.