Impact of Economic Growth and ICT on Energy Consumption in Iran; Wagner Theorem Test

Wagner believes that with the increase in per capita incomee of the society, the relative size of the public sector's spending on infrastructure development, including cheap energy will increase. The purpose of this study is to estimate the long-term and short-term effects of economic growth and Information and communication Technology (ICT) on energy (electricity) consumption; using annual time series data in Iran during the period 1971 to 2014. For this purpose, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and the error correction (ECM) methods are used to show the long-term and short-term relationships and further Granger's causality test is used to determine the causality relationship. The results showed that in the long run, economic growth and information and communication technology have stimulated the consumption of electricity in Iran. Multivariate causality test confirms the one-way causal relationship of economic growth and information and communication technology to power consumption. The results also showed that, in the long run, a one percent increase in economic growth and information and communication technology would increase electricity consumption by 0.78% and 0.028%, respectively. The error correction coefficient also shows that in each period 9.7 percent of the imbalance in real per capita consumption is adjusted and approaches its long-term trend. The results affirm the Wagner theory based on the relationship between the growth of per capita income, economic complexity, and the increase in demand for new goods and services, including cheap energy supply by the state.