The relationship between natural gas consumption and economic growth in OPEC members
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between natural gas consumption and economic growth in 12 OPEC member countries for the period of 1980 2012. The paper adopts the panel Granger causality test of Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) [21] to assess the causal relationship between natural gas consumption and economic growth. The findings show the evidence of feedback relation between natural gas consumption and economic growth in OPEC members as a panel. However, diverse results are obtained when the member countries are individually examined. The results provide evidence for growth hypothesis in Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, but conservation hypothesis in Algeria, Iran, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Further evidence suggests the existence of neutrality hypothesis in Angola and Qatar; and feedback hypothesis in Ecuador.