The Unassuming Economist

From a chapter by Salil Seth, Mrinal Kanti Mahato, and Parveen Yadav:

“Confronted with proliferating geopolitical risks emanating from energy producers, the energy security of the European Union (EU) is surrounded by plethora of challenges. Amid high volatility in energy prices, political disruptions and energy supply constraints, myriad hurdles are in the offing for energy security in EU. The current energy policy of the EU, which emphasizes competition, sustainability, and a secure supply chain, requires revitalization. A roadmap should be established to develop energy security strategies. This work performs systematic data mining for drawing literature in line with the mentioned road map-based objectives.The intention of the work is to facilitate EU with conceptualized framework strategies pertaining to energy security. This is anticipated to act as a trailblazer for energy protagonists like sustainability engineers, energy policy drafters, energy supply chain intermediaries, and strategy makers and incubate the concept with reference to the EU. This will enable the EU to overcome challenges in the energy security and at the same time set a benchmark for other competing nations.”

From a paper by Neeraj Nautiyal, Mobeen Ur Rehman, Rami Zeitun, and Xuan Vinh Vo:

“We investigate how socially responsible investment (SRI) funds respond to different oil-induced price shocks, using Ready’s (2018) approach. Using daily data for six SRI indices from March 8, 2016, to November 29, 2024, we apply wavelet coherence and nonlinear causality methods to analyze the time-frequency relationship between oil shocks and SRI fund performance across different market states. Our findings reveal that supply and risk shocks play a significant role in driving the co-movement between oil price dynamics and SRI funds’ behavior returns, particularly at medium and lower frequencies, respectively. Risk shocks exhibit a systemic influence, consistently dominating supply and demand shocks, especially in the pre-2021 period and during the COVID-19 pandemic, though their effects fizzle out in stable market conditions. Quantile causality estimates confirm the strong predictive power of risk shocks, particularly at lower quantiles. Our work presents practical implications for ethical investors, dealing with oil-related market risks.”

From a paper by John Beirne, and Nuobu Renzhi:

“This paper provides estimates of oil price pass-through (OPPT) to both producer and consumer prices for nine emerging Asian economies using a time-varying parameter SVAR model over the period 1991–2023. We further examine how global factors affect the transmission of oil prices to producer and consumer prices, specifically via shocks in global output, US monetary policy, and global financial market uncertainty. Overall, we find that OPPT is less than proportionate and mostly higher for OPPT to producer than consumer prices, while pass-through estimates also tend to be higher in the long term. In addition, we find that OPPT has been declining for most Asian EMEs in the period after the global financial crisis of 2008. Finally, while the responsiveness of OPPT to global shocks varies depending on the type of shock, contractionary US monetary policy shocks overall most significantly amplify OPPT for both producer and consumer prices.”

From a paper by Farhan Wahid, Noman Shafi, Ahsan Abbas, and Muhammad Junaid Bilal:

“This research has been undertaken for the investigation of the association of the renewable energy consumption (REC) with the foreign direct investment (FDI) along with moderating effect of the renewable internal energy resources (RIFS). This study’s prime objective is examining the influence of the REC on the FDI, and understanding how the RIFS impacts the REC and the FDI relationship. The data has been collected from the database of the World Bank for countries belonging to OECD for the period beginning from 2011 and ending in 2020. The results have been drawn by using STATA 17 software which show significant values for the regression test, the unit root tests and the GMM test. Furthermore, this research highlights that the RIFS moderates the relationship between the said variables and results show that when there is an involvement of the renewable sources of the energy, the REC’s effect on the FDI is moderated. Concludingly, it has been analyzed that the relationship of the REC with the FDI is significant while underscoring the RIFS’ role in the production of renewable energy. This study suggests that the RIFS in the energy sector can increase the FDI.”

From a paper by Richard Schmitz,, Franziska Flachsbarth, Leonie Sara Plaga, Martin Brauna, and
Philipp Härtel:

“Recent events, including the pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, supply chain disruptions, and climate
change impacts, have exposed the critical need to ensure energy security and resilience in energy
systems. We review existing definitions and interrelations between energy security and resilience,
conceptualising these terms in the context of energy system transformations. We introduce a classification of disturbances into shock events and slowburn processes to highlight key challenges to energy system resilience. Examples illustrate their distinct impacts on technical, economic, and environmental system performance over time.We compile relevant recourse options across resilience capacity levels and system planning horizons to address these challenges, emphasising actionable strategies for an increasingly integrated energy system. Finally, we propose policy recommendations to integrate shock events and slow burn processes into future energy system planning, enabling forward-looking decision-making and system design to analyse and mitigate potential disruptions.”