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Oil has maintained a dominant form of energy source due to its flexibility and universal strength. This paper attempts to investigate the causal relationship between oil consumption and economic growth in Ecuador where oil consumption and real GDP have been rapidly increased in recent years. To this end, the paper employs Ecuadorian annual data covering the period 1965–2011. Tests for unit roots, co-integration, and Granger-causality based on the error-correction models are presented. The overall results reveal that there is unidirectional causality running from economic growth to oil consumption without any feedback effects. Thus, oil conservation policies can be initiated without deteriorating economic side-effects in Ecuador. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy is one of the important elements in the production of goods and satisfies the required services. The economy of Japan is basically dependent on imported energy resources for 97% of its total domestic energy consumption per year, the highest percentage of any major industrialized nations. Thus, reducing dependency and import expenditures are always main issues in the energy policy of Japan. In this study, four indices are constructed to measure Energy Supply Security: Dependency Index, Intensity Index, Local Production Index, and Composite Index. This paper investigates the causal relationship between aggregated and disaggregated levels of energy supply security indices and the input parameters that are: petroleum prices, total primary energy supply, energy consumption per capita, share of renewable energy sources, carbon dioxide emissions, human development index, and the mean of democracy indices of energy supplier countries of Japan for the period of 1975–2007. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the demand function for gasoline in Korea using quarterly data covering the period 1991–2010. The long-run and short-run elasticities of demand with respect to gasoline price and national income are empirically examined using a co-integration and error correction model (ECM). Gasoline demand is relatively elastic to price and income change in both the long run and short run, and each elasticity is higher in the long run than in the short run. Moreover, gasoline demand response to price is higher than to income. This implies that a price demand-side management policy can be quite effective in Korea. Especially, the limitation of price change is important to the stabilization of gasoline demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates the causal relationship between fossil energy sources, the production cost of oil and financial development on economic growth in Russia. The results show that Russian companies’ production cost of oil and oil prices cause economic growth and the one-way causality is negative. We also find that there is one-way positive causality from natural gas price, financial development, and education to economic growth. The negative oil price effect supports the resource curse hypothesis, whereas the positive natural gas price effect does not. Russian policies should focus on lowering companies’ production cost of oil, improving financial development and investing in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attemps to look into the causal relationship between oil consumption and economic growth in Brazil where oil consumption and real gross domestic product (GDP) have been rapidly increased in recent years. To this end, the study employs annual data covering the period 1965–2010. Tests for unit roots, co-integration, and Granger-causality based on the error-correction models are presented. The overall results support the existence of bi-directional causality between oil consumption and economic growth in Brazil. This means that an increase in oil consumption directly affects economic growth. Thus, in order not to make an adverse effect on economic growth, Brazil should endeavor to overcome the constraints on oil consumption. Moreover, it appears that economic growth induces oil consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]