Implications of Economic Complexity for Renewable Energy Consumption and Sustainable Development: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

This study investigates how economic complexity mediates the effect of Renewable Energy Consumption on Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa for the period 1990 to 2021 and using data for 32 countries. It considered the enhancing effect of renewable energy consumption on sustainable development, and assessed the extent to which economic complexity mediates the effect of renewable energy consumption on sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa. For this purpose, the study employed the ARDL Pooled Mean Group estimation technique for the baseline estimations, while the FGLS, PCSEs and Driscol Kraay estimations for robustness checks. The findings of the study reveal that renewable energy consumption significantly enhances sustainable development. The findings equally reveal that economic complexity significantly mediates the enhancing effect of renewable energy consumption on sustainable to the extent that of the total effect of an increase in renewable energy consumption on sustainable development, about 45.75% is transmitted indirectly through economic complexity. The policy inferences from these findings are that the increased and deliberate improvement and use of renewable energy sources would contribute enormously in reducing the ecological damages arising from development, thereby enhancing as sustainability. Moreover, the measures to boost renewable energy use need to be accompanied by rigorous measures to promote the increased production and exportation of more technologically sophisticated products by Sub-Saharan African countries.