Hierarchical structure of the countries based on electricity consumption and economic growth

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the hierarchical relationships among 60 countries based on electricity consumption and economic growth from 1971 to 2008, revealing clusters related to geography and income levels.

Contribution

It introduces a hierarchical structure analysis using MST and HT methods to explore the relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth across countries.

Findings

Identified country clusters based on geography and income

Found a strong link between energy consumption and economic growth

Results support a causal relationship between electricity use and growth

Abstract

We investigate the hierarchical structures of countries based on electricity consumption and economic growth by using the real amounts of their consumption over a certain time period. We use of electricity consumption data to detect the topological properties of 60 countries from 1971 to 2008. These countries are divided into three subgroups: low income group, middle income group and high income group countries. Firstly, a relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth is investigated by using the concept of hierarchical structure methods (minimal spanning tree (MST) and hierarchical tree (HT)). Secondly, we perform bootstrap techniques to investigate a value of the statistical reliability to the links of the MST. Finally, we use a clustering linkage procedure in order to observe the cluster structure more clearly. The results of the structural topologies of these trees are as follows: i) we identified different clusters of countries according to their geographical location and economic growth, ii) we found a strong relation between energy consumption and economic growth for all the income groups considered in this study and iii) the results are in good agreement with the causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth.