Are fluctuations in coal consumption per capita temporary? Evidence from developed and developing economies

Abstract

This paper investigates the unit root properties of coal consumption per capita for the 47 developed and developing countries for 1965-2010 period. To examine the stationary properties of coal consumption per capita, Lagrange multiplier (LM) unit root test with one break and two breaks Crash model has been utilized. According to empirical results, the coal consumption is stationary in almost all the countries analyzed. Thus, if the coal consumption is mean (or trend) reverting, then it follows that the series will return to its mean value (or trend path) and it might be possible to forecast future movements in the coal consumption based on past behaviors of the series. For the policy makers, it is not necessary to pay attention to coal consumption excepting for Indian and Italian. However, for the researchers it is important to take into account the stationarity property of coal consumption and also structural breaks (should be modeled) in their future studies.