Abstract
This study examines how various actors influence the transition to a renewable-energy economy. We employ a conceptual framework derived from a literature review and text-mining analysis and establish a panel data model for an empirical test using unbalanced panel data from 25 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), for the period from 1990 to 2014. We establish a panel vector autoregressive (VAR) model in the first differences and use a bias-corrected least squares dummy variable (LSDVC) estimator to test complex dynamic relationships between government, the public, markets, the traditional energy sector (i.e., the sector that uses nuclear power, oil, coal and natural gas as sources for electricity) and the contribution of renewables to the total energy supply. We also perform Wald tests on the coefficients of variables estimated by LSDVC estimator to determine causal relationships between the variables. The results of this study reveal that government and markets directly promote the transition to renewable energy, whereas the traditional energy sector negatively and directly affects the transition. By contrast, the public does not directly influence the transition to a renewable-energy economy. This study also shows that the government and public have positive indirect effects on the transition, by interacting with the market. We also find convincing evidence of significant dynamic-path dependence in all estimations. Finally, we discuss some implications based on the findings of this study.
Highlights
Intensified social and economic problems or issues, such as those relating to economic development, energy, environment, food, health, security, social services and water and sanitation, tend to bring about social consensuses on tackling such challenges, which increasingly promote calls for extensive social change
This implies that the transition to a renewables-based economy needs to be understood from the perspective of multiple actors [17], multiple levels [2] and political economy [18,19,20], with a focus on the roles played by the various facets of society insofar as they influence social change and societal transformation
The results revealed that, with some exceptions (Italy, Korea and Norway in RETRAO; Denmark and Greece in environmental policy stringency (EPS); Belgium and United States of America (USA) in GHG; France, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United Kingdom (UK) in EOS; Japan and Norway in ENS; Japan and Sweden in ENGS; Korea, Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey and USA in ECS; Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Japan in ESECU), the individual time-series do not deviate significantly from the normal distribution at 1% or 5% significance levels
Summary
Intensified social and economic problems or issues, such as those relating to economic development, energy, environment, food, health, security, social services and water and sanitation, tend to bring about social consensuses on tackling such challenges, which increasingly promote calls for extensive social change. A socio-technical transition focused on energy-related issues involves reconfiguring different socio-technical sub-systems or societal domains [1], which entails interactions between various actors, agents, or stakeholders in a society [2,3,4] and which involves various patterns and pathways [5], different phases [6], public discourse and high levels of co-evolution, complexity and uncertainty [7,8] In this context, the transition to an economy based on renewable energy requires collective, complex and long-term processes involving multiple actors to achieve fundamental social innovations and new solutions to social challenges that have the intent and effect of achieving equality, justice and empowerment [9] and which become a general social phenomenon and increasingly affect all walks of life [10]
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