Alla Moroz

In an environment where public funding is insufficient to meet international climate and energy goals, feed-in tariffs serve as an essential mechanism to mitigate investment risk and foster the participation of insurance companies as institutional investors in the renewable energy sector. This study aims to investigate whether feed-in tariff policies enhance the evolving effect of insurance sector development on renewable energy consumption across countries and over time. Given that both financial sector capacity and renewable energy transitions are dynamic processes, the analysis explicitly applies econometric techniques designed to capture temporal changes and investment inertia. Using panel data econometric techniques, including fixed effects models with cluster-robust standard errors and dynamic panel estimation (Arellano-Bond GMM), the analysis covers 64 countries from 2000 to 2020. The results reveal that greater insurance sector assets positively correlate with higher renewable energy consumption, with a coefficient of 0.143 (p < 0.01) in the fixed effects model. Still, the strength and significance of this relationship are notably enhanced when feed-in tariffs are in place, as shown by a positive and statistically significant interaction term (coefficient 0.051, p < 0.05) after adding time-fixed effects. The empirical results show that insurance companies can serve as critical institutional investors in the renewable energy sector. Still, their active participation critically depends on supportive policy frameworks, with the positive association between insurance company assets and renewable energy consumption becoming significant, particularly in countries with feed-in tariff schemes.

Acknowledgment
This study was prepared as part of the project IZURZ1_224119/1 (Swiss National Science Foundation) and the National Scholarship Programme of the Slovak Republic.
The publication was funded by the European Union grant “NextGenerationEU through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Slovakia” (No. 09I03-03-V01-00130) and project VEGA – 1/0392/23 “Changes in the approach to the creation of companies’ distribution management concepts influenced by the effects of social and economic crises caused by the global pandemic and increased security risks.”

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
As governments worldwide intensify efforts to achieve decarbonization, the role of fiscal and public policy instruments in shaping energy transitions has gained critical importance. This study evaluates how budgetary measures, taxation schemes, subsidies, and regulatory standards influence renewable electricity outcomes, thereby linking climate policy design with broader public and municipal finance issues. The analysis relies on panel data from 48 OECD, OECD negotiating members, and OECD participating partner-countries between 2009 and 2022, estimated with fixed and random effects models in R Studio and tested for robustness using Driscoll-Kraay and cluster-robust standard errors. The findings indicate that, compared with other instruments, feed-in tariffs (β = 0.116, p < 0.001), planning for renewables expansion (β = 0.070, p < 0.01), and air emission standards (β = 0.170, p < 0.001) provide the strongest and most consistent support for renewable electricity development. Renewable energy certificates and auctions also contribute positively, though with weaker statistical significance, while fossil fuel excise taxes and coal bans display mixed or context-dependent effects. The adjusted R² of 0.38 for renewable electricity generation and 0.44 for renewable electricity supply demonstrates the explanatory relevance of the selected policy variables. Robustness checks further confirm the enduring importance of feed-in tariffs as a cornerstone of fiscal support for renewables. Finally, cross-country heterogeneity is evident, with strong positive random effects in Bulgaria (0.86), Slovenia (0.73), and Czechia (0.81), and pronounced negative effects in Saudi Arabia (–1.23), Costa Rica (–1.22), and Chile (–0.95).

Acknowledgment
This study was prepared as part of the project 101127491-EnergyS4UA-ERASMUS-JMO2023-HEI-TCH-RSCH and as part of the project “From Dependency to Resilience: Renewable Energy Transformation in Post-Soviet States – A Multi-Level Analysis of Key Drivers of Success” within the Philipp Schwartz Initiative, funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. However, views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. The authors are thankful to the Silesian University of Technology and the National Scholarship Programme of the Slovak Republic for their support in carrying out this research.