{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,1]],"date-time":"2026-04-01T19:45:53Z","timestamp":1775072753253,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":68,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,18]],"date-time":"2023-02-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1676678400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Energies"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The World Energy Council has consistently formulated useful policies and ranked countries in term of their performances in environmental sustainability, energy equity, and energy security. In a novel approach, and possibly in one of the most unique studies in the World Energy Trilemma literature, the current study examines the interaction of energy efficiency and economic growth of several top-performing economies (Austria, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) in respect to environmental sustainability, energy equity, and energy security. Importantly, while affirming the inappropriateness of the linear econometric approach, the study utilized the newly developed quantile-on-quantile approach to examine the dataset for the period 1990Q1 to 2018Q4. As such, the result largely indicates a significant and positive effect of economic growth toward the energy efficiency across the quantiles for the examined countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom). On the other hand, energy efficiency also impacts economic growth in most parts of the quantiles in the examined countries. However, the results show weak and negative interaction in the lower quantiles (average of 0.1\u20130.3) only for Denmark, Germany, and New Zealand, while the results further reveal weak and negative interaction in the middle quantile (average 0.4\u20130.6) for France, Finland, and Sweden. Importantly, this study presents useful economic-related policy inferences from the aspects of energy efficiency, energy security, energy equity, and environmental sustainability.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/en16042036","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,20]],"date-time":"2023-02-20T02:29:08Z","timestamp":1676860148000},"page":"2036","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":19,"title":["Examining the Energy Efficiency and Economic Growth Potential in the World Energy Trilemma Countries"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5355-3707","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Andrew Adewale","family":"Alola","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"CREDS-Centre for Research on Digitalization and Sustainability, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, 2418 Elverum, Norway"},{"name":"Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences, Nisantasi University, Istanbul 34398, Turkey"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0094-1778","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Tomiwa Sunday","family":"Adebayo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Economic and Administrative Science, Cyprus International University, Mersin 99010, Turkey"}]},{"given":"Ifedolapo Olabisi","family":"Olanipekun","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Economics, Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo 351101, Nigeria"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,2,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"275","DOI":"10.1016\/j.desal.2007.04.040","article-title":"Energy efficiency and renewable technologies: The way to sustainable energy future","volume":"209","author":"Abulfotuh","year":"2007","journal-title":"Desalination"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"118","DOI":"10.1016\/j.eneco.2017.03.008","article-title":"Energy efficiency and economic growth: A retrospective CGE analysis for Canada from 2002 to 2012","volume":"64","author":"Bataille","year":"2017","journal-title":"Energy Econ."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2200","DOI":"10.1016\/j.eneco.2012.03.009","article-title":"Modeling international trends in energy efficiency","volume":"34","author":"Stern","year":"2012","journal-title":"Energy Econ."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"10","DOI":"10.1016\/j.energy.2004.04.055","article-title":"Energy efficiency\u2014A critical view","volume":"31","author":"Herring","year":"2006","journal-title":"Energy"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"128","DOI":"10.1016\/j.eneco.2017.11.007","article-title":"Does energy efficiency promote economic growth? 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