The Impact of Government Spending and Government Quality on Energy Poverty- A Global Evidence

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of government spending and government quality on energy poverty. This study employs a sample covering 77 countries on a global basis during the period of 2007-2022. Using fixed effect regression for panel data, we find that government spending could alleviate energy poverty, as evidenced by higher access to electricity and clean fuel for cooking. These results are consistent across a number of robustness tests. We further find that the favorable impact of government spending is more pronounced among countries with better effectiveness. Overall, our findings provide relevant implications for countries to attain energy security as well as alleviate energy poverty.