Investigation of the Nonlinear Effects of Fiscal Decentralization on Energy Consumption in Iran Provinces Using a Panel Quantile Regression Model

In economic theories, Fiscal decentralization represents the shifting of decision-making power about the composition of tax revenues and non-tax revenues or expenditures are from the government to local units to provincial government officials, which leads to increased efficiency in resource allocation. And, since the pioneering study of Oates (1972), fiscal decentralization and its effects have garnered significant attention among economists. In the past years, global warming, carbon emissions, climate change due to increased energy consumption have brought the issues of fiscal federalism versus provincial institutions to the agenda of policymakers and energy research institutes. Because fiscal federalism can play a crucial role in reducing non-renewable energy consumption, promoting renewable energy, and reducing carbon emissions. Hence, energy economists have endeavored to shed on the association between fiscal decentralization and energy consumption and carbon emissions. In this way, this paper examines the effect of fiscal decentralization, in the form of shifting revenues and tax incomes responsibilities from the government to provincial institutions, as well as raising of the urbanization, GDP, and energy price on energy consumption for 31 Iran provinces from 2006 to 2020. To this end, this paper employs Quantile Regression with Non-additive Fixed Effects to analyze the impact of fiscal decentralization on energy consumption. The results of this study show that fiscal decentralization has a non-linear relationship with energy consumption. In addition, the rising urbanization and GDP lead to high demand for energy consumption. Moreover, the rising energy price leads to low energy consumption.