The Role of Natural Resource Wealth and National-Level Economic Forces in Energy Poverty Intensity in African Economies

The Role of Natural Resource Wealth and National-Level Economic Forces in Energy Poverty Intensity in African Economies | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article The Role of Natural Resource Wealth and National-Level Economic Forces in Energy Poverty Intensity in African Economies Samson Adeniyi Aladejare This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5753367/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Despite the overwhelming natural resource endowments and economic progression of Africa, the continent happens to be the world’s poorest energy source in terms of availability, affordability, and accessibility of energy for basic human needs. Consequently, this paper examined the contributions of natural resource rents and homogenous economic factors to energy poverty intensity in 26 African countries between 1990 and 2023. Methodologically, the method of moments quantile regression approach was employed in deriving the study’s main inferences. Also, the dynamic common correlated estimation technique was applied for robustness. Empirically, the paper demonstrated that in African economies with relatively high levels of energy poverty intensity, resource endowments have a weak effect in propelling the former. However, natural resource rents are more important to exacerbate energy poverty in African countries with relatively more moderate energy poverty severity than those with low intensity. As a national-level economic factor, while income has an insignificant effect irrespective of energy poverty intensity in the African economies, public outlay substantially aggravates across all energy poverty intensity classifications by the same magnitude. However, infrastructure development reduced energy poverty more in economies with relatively low energy poverty severity, followed by moderate and high-intensity nations. Also, population growth’s adverse impact was most dominant in the low-energy-poverty-intense countries, followed by the medium- and high-energy-poverty-severe economies. Applicable policy measures were proposed by the study. JEL Classification: O13, O55, Q43. Other Public Policy Natural resources rent Income growth Public expenditure Infrastructure development Population growth Energy poverty intensity Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-5753367","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":396913170,"identity":"a7fcd68f-d951-441e-83e7-72fbd3602f12","order_by":0,"name":"Samson Adeniyi Aladejare","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"Federal University Wukari","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Samson","middleName":"Adeniyi","lastName":"Aladejare","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-01-02 17:20:18","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":{"humanSubjects":false,"vertebrateSubjects":false,"conflictsOfInterestStatement":false,"humanSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false,"humanSubjectConsent":false,"humanSubjectClinicalTrial":false,"humanSubjectCaseReport":false,"vertebrateSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false},"doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5753367/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5753367/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":73042000,"identity":"919a382a-0e27-4a9f-868b-ccc917b33574","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-01-06 08:02:22","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":351868,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"WIP9043730.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-5753367/v1_covered_5179df96-7377-4d6c-8881-d573a48680c7.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"The authors declare no competing interests.","formattedTitle":"\u003cp\u003eThe Role of Natural Resource Wealth and National-Level Economic Forces in Energy Poverty Intensity in African Economies\u003c/p\u003e","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Natural resources rent, Income growth, Public expenditure, Infrastructure development, Population growth, Energy poverty intensity","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5753367/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5753367/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eDespite the overwhelming natural resource endowments and economic progression of Africa, the continent happens to be the world’s poorest energy source in terms of availability, affordability, and accessibility of energy for basic human needs. 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