A Systematic Review of the Relationship Between Energy Consumption and Economic Growth in GCC Countries

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

 

Overall, this, “A systematic review of the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in GCC Countries,”  is an interesting paper relevant to the policy decision makers in this oil-rich region, Gulf

 

The following issues should be addressed to improve the quality of this paper and for its publication in this journal:

 

-          In the abstract, some implications should be mentioned.

 

• Need to add some recent studies which reported similar conclusions, such as:
• Shahbaz, Muhammad, Suleman Sarwar, Wei Chen, and Muhammad Nasir Malik. “Dynamics of Electricity Consumption, Oil Price and Economic Growth: Global Perspective.” Energy Policy 108, no. May (September 1, 2017): 256–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.06.006.
• Sarwar, Suleman, Wei Chen, and Rida Waheed. “Electricity Consumption, Oil Price and Economic Growth: Global Perspective.” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 76 (September 1, 2017): 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.RSER.2017.03.063.
• Waheed, Rida, Sahar Sarwar, and Chen Wei. “The Survey of Economic Growth, Energy Consumption and Carbon Emission.” Energy Reports 5 (2019): 1103–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2019.07.006.

-          Here, “GCC countries have been aware of the importance of energy conservation policies and therefore, they have some policies in place to conserve energy consumption”, but you did not mention any such conservation policy?

 

-          It would be better if, in Figure 1 and Figure 2, graphs cover the period latest as possible.

 

-          Here, “The institutions are lagging in the adoption of available technology (Khan & Adams, 2016) and research has found serious obstacles to fully integrate technology into educational processes (Cuban, Larry, Heather Kirkpatrick, 2001).”, then what? You should provide some implications and/or relevance to the topic/issues under study. It is not enough just to lump several citations in one place.

 -          Here “As a group, the feedback and the growth hypotheses are supported in 61% of the observations.”, you did not mention any implications relevant to the energy policymakers.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article provides a literature review on the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries. And what is the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth and the implementation of the sustainable development concept in the GCC countries? Is economic growth compatible with sustainable development?

Why the literature review covers the years since 2006 - please justify choice.

Abstract (Lines 26-27) - The results have important implications for policymaking - please specify to what extent.

No publication was specified in 2008 - why this year was not omitted from the analyzes (Figure 3).

In section 2 - Discussion and Analysis - the focus is rather on analysis, the discussion is negligible. Please complete the section with a discussion.

The same section lists 5 dimensions against which studies have been classified. Please describe these dimensions in more detail. Line 159 - Other methods - Which methods?

Tables 3-8 - no reference to tables in the text.

Section 2.3 - Summary of the analysis should be expanded. What results from the analyzes carried out for individual countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council?

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I believe the article succeeds. Indeed, through the analysis of the existing literature, the authors have created a complete framework on the theme.

I believe that the way in which the articles were pull out of the literature must be clarified (search mode, keywords used,...). There are still some typing errors in the text and it is also necessary to format the tables better because they are not easy to read at the moment. It should also be remembered that all acronyms must be made explicit at least once in the text, possibly the first time they are used.

I enclose the file containing my comments.

Good work.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been significantly improved. Comments and suggestions have been taken into account, however, the Authors did not answer the question: "Is economic growth in the GCC countries compatible with the concept of sustainable development?"
The article should also be improved in terms of language.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx