LEVERAGING ON ENERGY SECURITY TO ALLEVIATE POVERTY IN ASIAN ECONOMIES
Farhad Taghizadeh–Hesary, Abdulrasheed Zakari, Naoyuki Yoshino, Irfan Khan
Abstract
This study examines the role of energy security in poverty reduction in the 12 poorest Asian economies from 2000 to 2019. We postulated an energy security index using principal component analysis. We adopted the system generalized method of a moment technique to manage endogeneity and dynamism in the model. For robustness, we applied a panel-corrected standard error (PCSE). We found a negative relationship between energy security and poverty reduction, suggesting that energy security helps reduce poverty. We conclude that energy security promotes sustainable poverty alleviation and recommends feed-in tariffs, net metering, tax credits, and energy resource diversification away from fossil fuels.