Renewable energy policy and deployment of renewable energy technologies: The role of resource curse

Due to the increasing emission of greenhouse gases and global warming, the development of renewable energy has become very important. The availability of fossil fuels and the low cost of their extraction compared to renewable energy projects reduce the motivation of countries, especially countries that have abundant natural resources, to develop this technology. Renewable energy deployment has become crucial in response to rising greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. Policies supporting renewable energy play a significant role in this. This study examines the effect of such policies on the deployment of renewable energy technologies, considering the role of natural resources. Two groups of countries were analysed: 20 oil developed countries and 20 oil developing countries. Given the availability of data and the achievement of balanced panels to evaluate short-term and long-term relationships between variables, in current research Data from 2010 to 2020 was used, and various panel data estimators such as Feasible Generalized Least Squares and Generalized Method of Moments were employed. The Quantile estimator was also used to assess the accuracy of the results. The findings suggest that renewable energy policies consistently lead to increased deployment of renewable energy technologies, regardless of a country's group. Of course, this positive effect is different according to the level of development in countries. Due to the higher efficiency of renewable energy policy, developed oil countries have more capacity to support renewable energy projects than oil developing countries. The abundance of natural resources in oil developed countries did not negatively impact renewable energy capacity, but in oil developing countries, the "resource curse" hindered the development of installed renewable energy.