| dc.description.abstract | Crude oil is the one of the most important energy resources in the world and its prices have fluctuated widely, especially since the early 1980s. However, the higher oil price will exert upward pressure on the inflation rate in the world and thereby damage the global economy. Thus, in this paper we investigate the oil demand, oil price as well as environment Kuznets curve. In chapter 2, we attempt to use panel fully-modified OLS approach to example the crude oil demand in Asian countries over the period 1971-2005. The empirical results support that in comparison with OECD countries, GDP still plays an important role in explaining the demand for crude oil in Asian countries. In terms of price elasticity show that raising the oil price due to oil depletion in the future will not easily reduce oil consumption and will only result in extreme inflation. Moreover, we found that renewable energy has effect in terms of reducing oil consumption in Asian countries. In chapter 3, we have attempted to examine the relationships among the crude oil price, global activities index, global temperature as well as the exchange rate over the period from January 1982 to December 2009, using the EMD, ARDL and threshold regression approach. The results indicate that the long-run elasticity of the oil price in relation to global activities is found to be 0.398, which is lower than the finding of He et al. (2010). These results are possibly due to recent improvements in technology that have led to a reduction in demand for crude oil as global activities increase. Furthermore, we have found that global warming will help to reduce the oil price as the global temperature remains below the threshold value. However, after it exceeds the threshold value, as the global temperature continues to rise, it will have no effect in terms of reducing the oil price. In chapter 3, we attempt to use panel unit root and panel cointegration tests as well as the fully-modified OLS approach to examine the relationships among carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, energy use and GDP for 22 OECD countries (Annex II Parties) over the 1971-2000 period. Furthermore, in order to investigate these results for other direct greenhouse gases (GHGs), we have estimated the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis by using the total greenhouse gas (TGHG), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). The empirical results support that energy use still plays an important role in explaining the GHG emissions for OECD countries. In terms of the EKC hypothesis, the results showed that a quadratic relationship was found to exist in the long run. Thus, other countries could learn from the developed countries in this regard and try to smooth the EKC curve at relatively less cost.
| en_US |