Solar energy and happiness sentiment: the pursuit of sustainable development under impacts of global volatility

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between solar energy and happiness in the context of global volatility. In which, we employ return series of Global Solar Energy and Twitter’s Daily Happiness Sentiment indexes from 14 October 2013 to 03 May 2022 to analyze their linkage using the dynamic conditional correlation multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity framework. We find reliable evidence that the nexus between two variables partly illustrates a trade-off under economic stability (until 31 December 2019) and becomes a positively mutual interaction as from the Covid-19 occurrence (01 January 2020). This result indicates that the development of solar energy was challenged by the happiness goal before the pandemic. Besides, sustainability and happiness positively interact to each other under impacts of the Covid-19 outbreak. The time-varying dynamic conditional correlation between return series becomes asymmetric under impacts the global volatility context. To further examine the relation between solar energy and happiness, we construct a quasi-portfolio which includes represented indexes. Our analyses affirm that the optimal weight of happiness increases in the latter sub-period. This effect suggests the optimal choice of happiness and sustainability in the context of global volatility. In accordance, our findings imply that happiness remains the major goal of human beings in pursuit of sustainable development goals.