My research focuses on the design and evaluation of public policy incentive mechanisms designed to correct the problems arising from environmental externalities associated with energy use. More specifically, I carry out empirical research on the effectiveness of behavioral and economic incentives that are designed to reduce residential energy demand as well as field work on market based regulation of local air pollutants. I am presently working with Prof. Michael Greenstone, Nicholas Ryan (MIT Economics) and Prof. Rohini Pande (Harvard Kennedy School); part of a joint effort with India's Ministry of Environment and Forests to design and evaluate a trading market in suspended particulate matter from industrial sources in three states (Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu).
Work In Progress
Clean Fuels, Dirty Air: The individual health benefits of clean fuel adoption in polluted local environments
The health impacts from indoor air pollution are a serious problem in much of the developing world. Efforts have been made since at least the 1980s to improve cooking and fuel technology, and encourage household adoption of the clean stoves or clean fuels. The successes and failures of these programs have significantly changed the design of stoves and fuel delivery systems from early mud stove designs dating through to the latest biomass gasification based models. Unfortunately while our understanding of the engineering fundamentals of stoves has grown, we still know too little about the preferences and behaviors of households being targeted by these programs.
This paper attempts to contribute to our understanding of this problem by estimating a discrete continuous model of household technology adoption and use, evaluating the elasticity of clean fuel use on both the extensive and intensive margin, with respect to three different costs that households face when choosing a cooking technology. These include time, money, and the costs of health externalities from pollution. We use a unique dataset to estimate the magnitude of the health externality and provide evidence that the health benefits from fuel shifts depend systematically on ambient pollution levels. In so doing, we also link the related but hitherto separately treated problems, of particulate air pollution from local and ambient sources.
Incentives and Behavior: Novel economic and behavioral incentives to mitigate the growth in urban residential electricity demand
Deconstructing the Rosenfeld Curve: An econometric model of residential electricity consumption (submitted Energy Economics)
DC Tribo-electric probes as a continuous mass flow measurement device for industrial suspended particulate emissions
The health impacts from indoor air pollution are a serious problem in much of the developing world. Efforts have been made since at least the 1980s to improve cooking and fuel technology, and encourage household adoption of the clean stoves or clean fuels. The successes and failures of these programs have significantly changed the design of stoves and fuel delivery systems from early mud stove designs dating through to the latest biomass gasification based models. Unfortunately while our understanding of the engineering fundamentals of stoves has grown, we still know too little about the preferences and behaviors of households being targeted by these programs.
This paper attempts to contribute to our understanding of this problem by estimating a discrete continuous model of household technology adoption and use, evaluating the elasticity of clean fuel use on both the extensive and intensive margin, with respect to three different costs that households face when choosing a cooking technology. These include time, money, and the costs of health externalities from pollution. We use a unique dataset to estimate the magnitude of the health externality and provide evidence that the health benefits from fuel shifts depend systematically on ambient pollution levels. In so doing, we also link the related but hitherto separately treated problems, of particulate air pollution from local and ambient sources.
Incentives and Behavior: Novel economic and behavioral incentives to mitigate the growth in urban residential electricity demand
Deconstructing the Rosenfeld Curve: An econometric model of residential electricity consumption (submitted Energy Economics)
DC Tribo-electric probes as a continuous mass flow measurement device for industrial suspended particulate emissions
Selected Publications
Real-time Feedback and Electricity Consumption: A Field Experiment Assessing the Potential for Savings and Persistence. 2011 (with Sebastien Houde, Annika Todd, June A. Flora and Carrie K. Armel. Submitted to The Energy Journal, Revise and Resubmit)
Abstract
Psychohistory Revisited: Fundamental issues in forecasting climate futures. Climatic Change. Vol 104(3-4). pp 457-472. 2011 (With Cullenward, D., Schipper, L., and Howarth, R).
Transport and carbon emissions in the United States: The long view. Energies (Special Issue on Energy-Friendly Transportation).Vol 4(4). pp 563-581. 2011. (With Schipper, L. and Saenger, C.).
Gupta, Eshita and Anant Sudarshan. 2009. “Energy and Poverty in India.” In Noronha, Ligia and Anant Sudarshan (eds). India’s Energy Security. Routledge ContemporarySouth Asia Series. pp. 29-47. New York: Routledge
“How can economic schemes curtail the increasing sex ratio at birth in China?”Demographic Research. Vol 19. pp. 1831-1850. 2008. (With Bhattacharjya, D., Tuljapurkar, S., Shachter, R. and Marcus Feldman).
“Weather data mining using independent component analysis.” 2004. Journal of Machine Learning Research. Vol 5. pp. 239-253. 2004. (With Basak, J., Sudarshan, A.,Trivedi, D. and M. S. Santhanam).
Abstract
Psychohistory Revisited: Fundamental issues in forecasting climate futures. Climatic Change. Vol 104(3-4). pp 457-472. 2011 (With Cullenward, D., Schipper, L., and Howarth, R).
Transport and carbon emissions in the United States: The long view. Energies (Special Issue on Energy-Friendly Transportation).Vol 4(4). pp 563-581. 2011. (With Schipper, L. and Saenger, C.).
Gupta, Eshita and Anant Sudarshan. 2009. “Energy and Poverty in India.” In Noronha, Ligia and Anant Sudarshan (eds). India’s Energy Security. Routledge ContemporarySouth Asia Series. pp. 29-47. New York: Routledge
“How can economic schemes curtail the increasing sex ratio at birth in China?”Demographic Research. Vol 19. pp. 1831-1850. 2008. (With Bhattacharjya, D., Tuljapurkar, S., Shachter, R. and Marcus Feldman).
“Weather data mining using independent component analysis.” 2004. Journal of Machine Learning Research. Vol 5. pp. 239-253. 2004. (With Basak, J., Sudarshan, A.,Trivedi, D. and M. S. Santhanam).
