Evaluating the Spillover Effects of Institutional Quality on the Energy Efficiency of Selected Countries: A Dynamic Spatial Data Panel Approach

Today, the issue of protecting the environment and preventing its destruction is considered as one of the most important issues of global society. In neoclassical economics, capital and labor were considered as the engine of economic growth, but in recent decades, energy has become one of the main elements of economic growth. In a way, the economic growth of any country depends on the growth of its energy input (Zheng and Walsh, 2019). Along with energy use, greenhouse gas emission is also a term that is often used and the two are interconnected (Achampeng, 2018; Bacon et al., 2019; Gross and Aydin, 2019 and Reza et al., 2019). According to a report from the International Energy Agency, about 67% of the total carbon dioxide emissions are caused by the energy sector, and it shows that reducing air pollution can be achieved by controlling energy consumption. In an effort to respond to the dangers of climate change, studies suggest ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including; a) use of renewable energies; and b) the efficiency of using energy resources (Chang et al., 2018). Studies such as Alvarez-Hranz et al. (2017); Yuan et al. (2018); Lin and Zhou (2019) and Chen et al. (2019) proposed the use of renewable energy technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy consumption. However, the best and most cost-effective way to reduce air pollution and climate change caused by energy consumption is the optimal use of energy (Lopez-Pena et al., 2012). Triani et al. (2016) claim that strengthening energy efficiency in the industrial sector is the best tool in terms of cost efficiency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy sources. Therefore, energy efficiency is considered as one of the main strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.Considering the importance of environmental quality and the role of energy efficiency in its realization, in this article we try to examine the impact of good governance indicators on energy efficiency and its spatial effects. Therefore, in the field of energy efficiency, one of the goals of this research is to empirically examine the issue of whether the institutional arrangements of neighboring countries affect the institutional quality of the country itself and, as a result, whether energy efficiency is affected in this way. Therefore, we seek to answer these questions, is there a spatial spillover effect of institutional quality? If such spatial spillover exists, how much can it explain a country's level of energy efficiency? Also, the lack of agreement between the experimental studies in the obtained results and the reporting of different results in them is another factor of investigating the issue in the present research. Spatial studies use spatial econometrics instead of common econometrics. Researchers in business, commercial and demographic studies that deal with spatial data and observations and can replace common econometrics with spatial econometrics. The most important differences between spatial econometrics and conventional econometrics are issues such as spatial autocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity, while the aforementioned issues are not discussed in conventional econometrics and it is ignored that not considering this issue causes a violation of the Gauss-Markov assumptions in this research with a random border approach and patterns Spatial econometrics examines the spatial impact of institutional quality on energy efficiency for a country group consisting of 89 countries and for the period 2002-2020. First, in order to avoid false regression, unit root tests are performed and their results are reported accordingly. The reported results indicate that the variables of logarithm of energy efficiency, logarithm of gross domestic product, logarithm of added value of industry sector, logarithm of added value of service sector, logarithm of urbanization population and logarithm of governance quality index are all at the same level. To estimate and analyze the model, the population spatial weight matrix and the gravity model were used, which were standardized using the row standardization method of the elements of this matrix. The considered model in relation (9) was estimated by SAR, SEM, SAC and SDM methods, and the best estimation method is decided by using the relevant tests. Studies have been conducted on the effect of institutional quality and governance on energy efficiency; But the understanding of the relationship and influence of government institutions on energy efficiency is still limited due to few studies, especially in the era of globalization, where countries interact more with each other and their policies and executive actions are affected by each other. Therefore, in this study, with the aim of investigating and analyzing the effects of institutional quality and governance and their spillover effects on energy efficiency, data from 89 countries were used in the period of 2002-2018. In this study, energy efficiency is estimated using the stochastic frontier analysis model and the spillover effects of institutional quality and governance are investigated with spatial panel patterns. In general, the experimental results show that energy efficiency has spatial correlation in the studied countries, and more importantly, the experimental results support the existence of spillover effects of governance quality on energy efficiency. In the current study, the direct effect of governance quality on energy efficiency was positive, although this effect was not statistically significant, but the spillover effects of this variable on energy efficiency had a positive and significant effect. Therefore, the level of energy efficiency of a country can not only be affected by the economic structure of each country, but in addition to the quality of institutions and executive policies of the country itself, it can also depend on the quality of institutions and governance of neighboring countries. This result shows that the country being surrounded by countries with good governance and institutional framework can affect the performance of efficiency and quality.