The Impact of Electricity Consumption on Economic Development in Turkey: A Geographically Weighted Regression Approach

In this study, for NUTS 3 level region of Turkey, the relation between economic development level and electricity consumption in 2000 has been reviewed. The geographically weighted regression (GWR) that deals with interregional differences was used in this study. Empirical analyses carried out in this paper indicate that the electricity consumption affected the economic development positively both in local and global level. When the indicators of production factors and human capital were included in the model, all of them affected the economic development positively, both in local and global level. When the spatial distribution of local parameters has reviewed, the largest effect of electricity consumption on the economic development level was seen in the provinces which are located in the middle section that close to the western side of Turkey. The lowest effect was in the provinces located in the eastern and especially in the Southern East.