Economic growth and biomass consumption nexus: Dynamic panel analysis for Sub-Sahara African countries

•We examine long run dynamics of biomass energy consumption and GDP growth for 51 Sub-Sahara African countries.•The paper finds significant effect of biomass consumption on GDP in 51 Africa countries.•Economic growth is affected by biomass consumption, openness and population. This paper investigates the long run dynamics of economic growth and biomass consumption nexus by applying dynamic panel analyses for 51 Sub-Sahara African countries for 1980–2009 period. The results show that economic growth is affected by biomass consumption, openness and population significantly and positively in African countries. GDP elasticity with respect to biomass consumption is close to unity and the elasticities of GDP in terms of openness are found statistically significant (between 0.259 and 0.348). According to homogeneous variance structure, one percent increase in variables of biomass, openness and population will lead GDP to increase by 1.818%, 0.269% and 0.676%, respectively. However, according to estimations from heterogeneous variance structure indicate that one percent increase in biomass, openness and population variables will cause GDP to increase by 0.820%, 0.259% and 0.811%, respectively. In conclusion, this paper finds significant effect of biomass consumption on GDP in 51 Africa countries.