Nuclear energy, renewable energy, CO2 emissions, and economic growth for nine developed countries: Evidence from panel Granger causality tests

•We studied the dynamic links among NEC, CO2 emissions, REC and GDP.•Unidirectional links from REC to GDP at short run was found.•Bidirectional causality between REC and GDP was found.•There is a unidirectional causality from GDP to CO2 at long run.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the causal relationship between nuclear energy consumption, CO2 emissions, renewable energy and real GDP per capita using dynamic panel for nine developed countries over the period 1990–2013. Capital and labor are included as additional variables. Results shown that there is a unidirectional causality running from renewable energy consumption to real GDP per capita for the whole panel at short run; this implies that policies for reducing energy consumption may not retard economic growth and income. However, there is no links between nuclear energy consumption and real GDP per capita, but a unidirectional causality from nuclear energy consumption to labor. Moreover, a bidirectional causality between labor and capital, and between CO2 emissions and capital are found. In addition, there is a unidirectional causal relationship from labor to CO2 emissions, while among other variables no causal relationship is found.In the long run, there exists also a bidirectional causality between renewable energy consumption and real GDP per capita, which complain that renewable energy is a crucial component for economic growth. In addition, results revealed a unidirectional causality from GDP to CO2 emissions.