How energy consumption affects economic development in select African countries Saida Zaidi 1 • Samia Gmiden 1 • Kais Saidi 1 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017 Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine the causality between economic development (GDP), oil and gas consumption and in the case of eight countries over the period of 1980–2011. This study used the fully modified OLS. The findings support the conservative hypothesis; there is a relationship of causality going of the energy to the economic growth for the group countries except South Africa. The effect of oil and gas varies from a country to another one. The results provide evidence of feedback causality in Tunisia and Egypt. Keywords Economic growth Á Oil Á Gas Á Co-integration test Á FMOLS Á DOLS JEL Classification O1 Á Q31 1 Introduction The link between energy and economic growth is among the priorities of researchers for several years since the pioneer study of Kraft and Kraft (1978). The studies varied depending on the countries studied, econometric methodologies used and the results found. In the literature, the relationship between output and energy has attracted the interest of researchers for a long time. Basically, we can classify the previous studies in this area in four testing hypothesis; (1) the neutrality hypothesis; there is no causality between energy and GDP growth (Wolde-Rufael 2005; Jobert and Karanfil 2007; Akinlo 2008; Huang et al. & Saida Zaidi Zaidi.fsegs@gmail.com Samia Gmiden sa2008mia@gmail.com Kais Saidi saidikais.fsegs2014@gmail.com 1 Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Sfax, 3018 Sfax, Tunisia 123 Qual Quant DOI 10.1007/s11135-017-0480-0