Long-term Energy and Growth

Organizing team:
Astrid Kander (Lund University, Sweden)
Mar Rubio (Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Spain)
Ben Gales (University of Groningen, The Netherlands)

The LEG network (Long-term Energy- Growth), with a hub at Lund University, aims at establishing a consistent long-run dataset (1800-2000) for energy, including traditional energy sources, based on comparable standards across an increasing number of European countries. The long term objective is to create a data-base on energy that will be openly available for researchers, and to shed light on the crucial issue of how important energy is for economic growth.

1. A first ambition is to finish a comparable data set of long-term energy for many European countries. This will include quantities and prices for traditional energy carriers (firewood, peat, water, wind and animate energy) and modern energy carriers (coal, oil, electricity).
2. The second goal is to allocate the energy consumption to sectors, at least at specific benchmarks. This will enable determination of the importance of technical change versus structural change.
3. A third goal is to explore various econometric approaches for determining the importance of energy for growth.

The network currently consists of the following reseachers:

Francesca Antolin (Full professor, Barcelona University, Spain), Silvana Bartoletto (PhD, researcher at ISSM-CNR, Naples, Italy), Kerstin Enflo (PhD student, Lund University, Sweden), Ben Gales (Associate professor, Groningen University, Netherlands), Sofia Teives Henriques (PhD student, Lund University, Sweden), Astrid Kander (PhD, Associate professor, Lund University, Sweden), Magnus Lindmark (Associate professor, Bergen, Norway), Paolo Malanima (Full professor, Director of ISSM-CNR, Naples, Italy), Mar Rubio (PhD, assistant professor, University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain), Lennart Schön (Full professor, Lund University, Sweden), Enric Tello (Associate professor, Barcelona University, Spain), Richard W. Unger (Full professor, University of British Columbia, Canada), Paul Warde (Lecturer, Cambridge University, England), Benjamin Warr (PhD, researcher, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France), Antony E. Wrigley (Emeritus professor, Cambridge University, England).

There will be many publications: conference papers, articles in referee journals, booklets on energy for the different countries, we also plan to write a textbook for undergraduate students that summarizes the main results in a pedagogic way and therefore also can be used for policy makers. The network has been working together since 2003, with biannual workshops, funded by national agencies in Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, the UK and Italy. In addition researchers in the group have visited each other to work on specific articles.

With the support from GLOBALEURONET such networking activities will continue. PhD students will receive training in the group and thus contribute to continuous stress of these strategic issues in the future.