Green trajectories and heterogeneity in Sub-Saharan Africa: what role for human capital in latent energy regimes?

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Résumé

The relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growthattracts scientific interest. However, empirical results remain inconclusive, particularlyfor Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), largely reflecting unobserved cross-country structuralheterogeneity inadequately captured by conventional estimation methods. This articleapplies a Finite Mixture Model (FMM) to 44 SSA countries over 1990-2021, integratinghuman capital as a concomitant variable. Endogenous classification identifies fourlatent energy regimes: two conservation regimes (Classes 1 and 3), where renewableenergy consumption negatively affects growth (Class 1 ¼ -0.0798 and Class 3 ¼-0.198); and two growth regimes (Class 2: 59.38% of countries and Class 4: 29.18% ofcountries), where renewable energy consumption significantly stimulates economicgrowth (Class 2 ¼ 0.0245 and Class 4 ¼ 0.0484). A complementary panel thresholdregression identifies a single critical human capital threshold of 1.309, beyond whicheconomies develop the absorptive capacity necessary to turn the energy transitioninto a driver of productivity gains and growth. Estimates show that control of corrup-tion catalyses green growth in Class 4, whereas digitalisation initially entails detrimen-tal adoption costs in fragile regimes. These findings challenge uniform energy policiesand advocate differentiated transition strategies centred on strengthening techno-logical absorption capacities.

Mots-clés

Renewable energy;economic growth; finitemixture model (FMM);human capital; structuralheterogeneity; Sub-SaharanAfrica