Asymmetric energy price shock transmission and low carbon electricity transition in ASEAN

Abstract This paper examines whether international energy-price shocks transmit asymmetrically to electricity-sector carbon-transition performance in ASEAN. Using an unbalanced country-year panel for ten ASEAN economies over 2000--2025, the analysis measures transition performance by the low-carbon share of electricity generation and constructs real local-currency fuel-cost pressure as the main shock variable. The empirical design combines positive and negative shock decomposition, fixed-effect panel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) estimation, volatility-threshold conditioning, and country-specific rolling forecast comparisons, including mixed-data sampling (MIDAS) specifications. The results indicate statistically significant error correction and positive short-run transmission from fuel-cost increases. In the long run, however, the estimated response to fuel-cost increases and the absolute response to fuel-cost decreases are nearly identical, and the Wald test does not reject symmetry at the regional average. Threshold estimates suggest that high-volatility years may alter the negative-shock channel, although the interaction effects are imprecisely estimated. Forecast comparisons reveal substantial heterogeneity across countries: asymmetric or mixed-frequency terms improve monitoring accuracy in several economies, but no single specification dominates the region. The findings support a cautious monitoring interpretation. Directional fuel-cost pressure, volatility states, and country-specific electricity-system structure are informative for ASEAN transition assessment, but the annual panel does not justify a causal claim that higher fossil-fuel prices directly accelerate decarbonization.