Three Essays on Clean Energy

Abstract

This thesis is made up of three essays that examine clean energy development from various perspectives. In the first essay, we investigate how fluctuations in oil prices affect the stock returns of clean energy and oil and gas companies by using a SVAR. Our results show that a negative oil supply shock affects the stock returns of clean energy companies in a positive way, while a positive oil-specific demand shock affects them in a negative way. The findings also reveal that an increase in oil prices owing to an oil-specific demand shock does not improve the stock returns of oil and gas companies. Consequently, the results indicate that oil and clean energy are not alternatives to each other on the global level. The second essay pinpoints supply and demand shocks in the oil and gas markets and investigates their effects on clean energy stock returns in Europe using a SVAR. Our findings show that while a negative shock in global oil supply does not significantly affect clean energy stocks, a negative shock in the gas supply positively affects clean energy stocks. Moreover, both oil-specific and gas-specific demand shocks have a positive impact on the stock returns of European clean energy companies. The earlier findings imply that clean energy can substitute oil and gas in Europe. The final essay focuses on the spillover between investor attention and green bond returns by utilizing the Diebold-Yilmaz connectedness approach. We find that there are positive but small spillovers between investor attention and green bond returns. Besides, connectedness between investor attention and green bond market performance is stronger in the short run than in the long run. Besides, there is a time-varying feedback effect between green bond returns and investor attention. Last but not least, compared to the pre-Covid-19 and war periods, investor attention has a greater impact on green bond returns during the Covid-19 period.