The relationship between economic growth, international trade and energy efficiency in European countries: An Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) modeling approach

In order to analyze the nature of relationship among time series represented eco-nomic growth, international trade and energy efficiency of 38 European countries for the period from 1995 to 2022 we employed the ARDL model. We identified bidirectional long-term causal relationships between energy intensity and GDP growth rates, as well as between carbon dioxide emissions intensity, GDP per capi-ta and the proportion of exports in GDP. The analysis showed that over the long term, enhancing the energy intensity contributes to an increase in their rate of eco-nomic growth. However, in the short term, energy intensity have a negative impact on the GDP growth. Policymakers can use the paper's findings to design policies that balance benefits of reducing energy intensity with sustainable growth.