The role of shadow banking towards a sustainable growth path

This paper utilizes data from 26 countries to document the relationship between renewable energy consumption, shadow banking, traditional banking, and economic growth covering 2010–2021. Employing panel quantile approaches, the results indicate a negative and significant impact of renewable energy consumption on economic growth, highlighting the initial high costs inherent in transitioning to renewable energy sources. Moreover, the findings reveal that shadow banking, along with traditional banking, tends to weaken the negative impacts of renewable energy consumption on economic growth, particularly in countries with medium and high levels of economic development. Finally, panel causality tests confirm bidirectional causality between economic growth and renewable energy consumption, economic growth and shadow banking, and renewable energy consumption and shadow banking. These insights underscore the need for policymakers to consider the role of alternative financing mechanisms in the transition to renewable energy.