The relationships between electricity consumption and GDP in Asian countries, using hierarchical structure methods

•The relationships between EC and GDP in Asian countries are studied.•We constructed networks by using hierarchical structure methods.•We carried out bootstrap technique to determine the reliability of the links.•We used average linkage cluster analysis to observe cluster structures much better.•A strong relationship between energy consumption and economic growth is found.

This study uses hierarchical structure methods (minimal spanning tree (MST) and hierarchical tree (HT)) to examine the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in a sample of 30 Asian countries covering the period 1971–2008. These countries are categorized into four panels based on the World Bank income classification, namely high, upper middle, lower middle, and low income. In particular, we use the data of electricity consumption and real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita to detect the topological properties of the countries. We show a relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth by using the MST and HT. We also use the bootstrap technique to investigate a value of the statistical reliability to the links of the MST. Finally, we use a clustering linkage procedure in order to observe the cluster structure. The results of the structural topologies of these trees are as follows: (i) we identified different clusters of countries according to their geographical location and economic growth, (ii) we found a strong relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for all income groups considered in this study and (iii) the results are in good agreement with the causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth.