Does FDI affect energy consumption in the belt and road initiative economies? The role of green technologies

Abstract

This paper examines how foreign direct investments (FDI) affect energy consumption in the panel data of 29 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) economies from 2000 to 2021. The paper runs several panel data techniques, which concurrently accommodate the dataset's cross-sectional dependency, slope heterogeneity, and structural break concerns in the cointegration. The results show that global FDI positively affects energy consumption. China's FDI dominance also has a favorable effect on energy consumption. In addition, green technologies increase energy consumption. These results emphasise the significance of FDI policies and green technologies regarding promoting energy demand in the BRI economies.