Governance is often treated as a slow-moving background condition in energy transition research, even though institutional reform and implementation capacity shape outcomes over long horizons. This study adopts a time–frequency perspective to examine how institutional quality aligns with energy-system and carbon-efficiency transition dynamics using multivariate wavelet coherence. Unlike mean-based regression approaches, the multivariate design allows assessment of whether governance aligns with carbon efficiency through three distinct systems—external integration, energy transition with resource rents, and governance coherence—using carbon intensity of GDP (CIGDP) as a common anchor. Using annual data for a comparative sample of GCC economies and non-GCC emerging economies over the period 1996–2022, we examine the evolution of coherence among governance indicators, energy use, renewable energy consumption, external economic exposure, and carbon efficiency, with emissions-related measures explicitly incorporated into the wavelet systems. Environmental implications are therefore interpreted only for systems that directly include carbon-efficiency indicators. The results indicate that institutional quality is most strongly associated with transition dynamics at low frequencies, pointing to persistent long-run alignment rather than short-run adjustment. Across GCC economies, low-frequency coherence is stronger and more continuous, while medium-term weakening appears as time-specific episodes that do not disrupt the underlying long-run structure. In non-GCC emerging economies, long-run coherence remains evident but is less continuous, and medium-horizon fragmentation is more frequent and more prolonged. At high frequencies, coherence is generally weak across countries, suggesting that short-run variation appears more closely associated with external shocks and market conditions than with structural or institutional alignment. Overall, the findings position institutional quality as a stabilising and conditioning factor in energy and carbon-efficiency transitions, operating primarily through long-run coherence and resilience. Systematic differences across governance regimes reflect variation in the continuity and stability of alignment across time horizons, rather than differences in the relevance of governance itself.
Abdelkawy et al. (Sun,) studied this question.