The goal of this paper is to examine the long-run elasticities of the impacts of energy consumption on GDP and GDP on energy consumption. The energy consumption-GDP relationship is amongst the most popular relationships examined in the energy economics literature. The bulk of the extant literature has assumed a positive relationship between energy consumption and real GDP. Our analysis shows that in only around 60% of the countries considered the relationship is positive. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.