ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Energy Res.
Sec. Sustainable Energy Systems
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2025.1513569
Evaluating Energy Sustainability and Causal Impact of Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) in Energy-Deficient Asian Countries
Provisionally accepted
- 1Emerson University Multan, Multan, Pakistan
- 2Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin, China
- 3Astana University, Nur-Sultan, Akmola, Kazakhstan
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The strategic investment and international cooperation for sustainable energy supplies have grown within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries. Through such projects, BRI is believed to bring myriad benefits that engender trade and stimulating economic growth through investment in infrastructure. However, research that has targeted the causal impact of BRI initiatives on energy sustainability has markedly been lacking. The study aims to aid in filling this gap by analyzing the causal effect of BRI initiatives through an investigation of how BRI-related factors-FDI, economic growth, urbanization, trade openness, human capital, and infrastructure developmentaffect energy sustainability. The panel data of 20 Asian BRI energy-deficient countries have been taken into consideration for the time range of 2000 to 2022. This study carries out cross-sectional dependence tests, second-generation panel unit root and cointegration testing, panel quantile regression, and employ the Bayesian Structural Time Series (BSTS) approach in assessing the causal impact of BRI initiatives on energy sustainability. The panel quantile regression results reveal that economic growth, urbanization, trade, human capital, and infrastructure development significantly affect energy sustainability at various quantiles. Further, the causal impact analysis highlights the varied and significant effects of BRI initiatives on energy sustainability. Countries like Afghanistan, Maldives, and Uzbekistan should continue attracting investment for energy projects, while nations such as Bangladesh and Pakistan need to stabilize energy policies to manage short-term disruptions, and countries like Cambodia, Indonesia, and Turkey must balance rapid increase in energy demand with sustainable practices.
Keywords: Bayesian structural time series, Causal impact, economic growth, Energy sustainability, infrastructure, Panel quantile regression
Received: 25 Oct 2024; Accepted: 16 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Omar, Zeng and Salykova. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Abdullah Bin Omar, Emerson University Multan, Multan, Pakistan
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