Energy consumption, carbon emissions, and economic growth in India: Evidence from directed acyclic graphs

Abstract This study investigates the temporal linkages among economic growth, energy consumption, and carbon emissions for India during the period 1970–2008 using recently developed methods of out-of-sample Granger causality tests and directed acyclic graphs (DAG). Building on the data-driven DAG representation, we uncover the contemporaneous causal patterns between economic activities and environmental pollutants, which is first documented in the literature and could further improve the investigation of the dynamic linkage pattern. The results show that energy consumption uni-directionally Granger causes carbon emissions and economic growth, while there is a bidirectional causality between carbon emissions and economic growth. We also find that trade openness is one of the important determinants of energy consumption and carbon emissions. Some important policy implications are also discussed.