The impact of energy, renewable and CO2 emissions efficiency on countries’ productivity

In this article, we investigate the combined impact of energy, renewable and CO2 efficiency on countries’ overall productive performance. To this aim, we employ a global-level dataset of 127 countries for more than two decades. The main takeaways of our research are the following. Overall, our analysis supports the idea that incentivizing energy efficient practices should result in more efficient productive processes and economic growth. However, thanks to the combined use of Directional Distance Function, Cluster analysis and Hansen threshold techniques, we evidence strong heterogeneity across different groups of countries. As a consequence, we argue that the international environmental reforms agenda should not follow a one-size-fits-all approach and, especially in relation to less developed economies, it should go hand in hand with other kinds of reforms.