Papers
Economics and Policy​
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Reforming energy subsidies (with Fiona Burlig), forthcoming in the Handbook of Social Protection in the Developing World, Rema Hanna and Benjamin Olken, eds.
Can Pollution Markets Work in Developing Countries? Experimental Evidence from India. 2025. Quarterly Journal of Economics.140 (2). pp 1003–1060 (With Michael Greenstone, Rohini Pande, and Nicholas Ryan)
Abstract
​Market-based environmental regulations are seldom used in low-income countries, where pollution is highest but state capacity is often low. We collaborated with the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) to design and experimentally evaluate the world's first particulate matter emissions market, which covered industrial plants in a large Indian city. There are three main findings. First, the market functioned well. Treatment plants, randomly assigned to the emissions market, traded permits to become significant net sellers or buyers. After trading, treatment plants held enough permits to cover their emissions 99% of the time, compared to just 66% compliance with standards under the command-and-control status quo. Second, treatment plants reduced pollution emissions, relative to control plants, by 20% to 30%. Third, the market reduced abatement costs by an estimated 11%, holding constant emissions. This cost-savings estimate is based on plant-specific marginal cost curves that we estimate from the universe of bids to buy and sell permits in the market. The combination of pollution reductions and low costs imply that the emissions market has mortality benefits that exceed its costs by at least twenty-five times.
Media
The Economist, Indian Media: Compilation
The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence from the Decline of Vultures in India. 2024. American Economic Review. 114:10. pp. 3007-40 (With Eyal Frank) [Lead Article]
Abstract
​Scientific evidence has documented we are undergoing a mass extinction of species, caused by human activity. However, allocating conservation resources is difficult due to scarce evidence on damages from losing individual species. This paper studies the collapse of vultures in India, triggered by the expiry of a patent on a painkiller. Our results suggest the functional extinction of vultures—efficient scavengers that removed carcasses from the environment—increased human mortality by over 4 percent because of a large negative shock to sanitation. We quantify damages at $69.4 billion per year. These results suggest high returns to conserving keystone species such as vultures.
Media
​Rationing the commons. 2022. Journal of Political Economy. 130:1. pp. 210 – 257 (With Nicholas Ryan) [Appendix]
​Abstract
Common resources may be managed with inefficient policies for the sake of equity. We study how rationing the commons shapes the efficiency and equity of resource use in the context of agricultural groundwater use in Rajasthan, India. We find that rationing binds on input use, such that farmers, despite trivial prices for water extraction, use roughly the socially optimal amount of water on average. The rationing regime is still grossly inefficient, because it misallocates water across farmers, lowering productivity. Pigouvian reform would increase agricultural surplus by 12% of household income yet fall well short of a Pareto improvement over rationing.
​The Impact of Temperature on Productivity and Labor Supply: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing. 2021. Journal of Political Economy. 129:6, 1797-1827 . (with E. Somanathan, Rohini Somanathan, and Meenu Tewari
Abstract
​Hotter years are associated with lower economic output in developing countries. We show that the effect of temperature on labor is an important part of the explanation. Using microdata from selected firms in India, we estimate reduced worker productivity and increased absenteeism on hot days. Climate control significantly mitigates productivity losses. In a national panel of Indian factories, annual plant output falls by about 2% per degree Celsius. This response appears to be driven by a reduction in the output elasticity of labor. Our estimates are large enough to explain previously observed output losses in cross-country panels.
Media
The Consequences of Treating Electricity as a Right. 2020. Journal of Economic Perspectives. Vol 34 (1), pp 145-169 (with Robin Burgess, Michael Greenstone, and Nicholas Ryan)
Abstract
​This paper seeks to explain why billions of people in developing countries either have no access to electricity or lack a reliable supply. We present evidence that these shortfalls are a consequence of electricity being treated as a right and that this sets off a vicious four-step circle. In step 1, because a social norm has developed that all deserve power independent of payment, subsidies, theft, and nonpayment are widely tolerated. In step 2, electricity distribution companies lose money with each unit of electricity sold and in total lose large sums of money. In step 3, government-owned distribution companies ration supply to limit losses by restricting access and hours of supply. In step 4, power supply is no longer governed by market forces and the link between payment and supply is severed, thus reducing customers' incentives to pay. The equilibrium outcome is uneven and sporadic access that undermines growth.
Media
​Nudges in the marketplace: The response of household electricity consumption to information and monetary incentives. 2017. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 134, pp. 320-335
Abstract
This paper provides field evidence from India examining changes in electricity consumption in response to various behavioral interventions. I study the impact of (i) weekly reports with peer comparisons of electricity use; (ii) reports augmented with monetary incentives to reduce consumption and (iii) price variation. I estimate consumption changes using a randomized control trial in conjunction with a quasi-experiment. Households provided reports alone reduced summer season consumption by 7 percent. Price elasticity identified from cross-sectional and time series variation was estimated at −0.56. Against this benchmark, the impact of peer comparisons alone was equivalent to increasing tariffs by about 12.5 percent. Counter-intuitively, when weekly reports were augmented with monetary incentives rewarding electricity conservation, households no longer reduced consumption. Households receiving reports also show higher price elasticity relative to controls. These results provide new evidence identifying the response of developing country consumers to behavioral interventions while examining the interaction of prices, incentives and information.
The Solvable Challenge of Air Pollution in India. India Policy Forum 2017. (with Michael Greenstone, Santosh Harish, Rohini Pande)
Abstract
​More than 660 million Indians breathe air that fails India’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Research suggests that meeting those standards would increase the average life expectancy in India by one year. Going further and meeting the international benchmarks of the World Health Organization is estimated to add 4.7 years to the life expectancy. Notwithstanding these large benefits, successfully implementing policies that deliver clean air has proved difficult. This paper reviews a breadth of empirical evidence from within and outside India, as well as new data from Delhi’s recent program to ration driving, and industrial emissions in Gujarat and Maharashtra. It distills three lessons for designing effective reforms: (a) ensuring that regulatory data is reliable and unbiased, (b) framing regulations that are both economically efficient and incentive-compatible across the range of actors affected, and (c) introducing a culture of piloting and evaluating new policies as a scientific route to achieving better outcomes. It makes the case that market-based policy instruments may solve several problems with existing regulation in India, and have the potential to reduce air pollution and cut compliance costs at the same time.
Lower Pollution, Longer Lives: Life Expectancy Gains if India Reduced Particulate Matter Pollution’. 2015. Economic and Political Weekly., L(8), pp. 40-46. (with Michael Greenstone, Janhavi Nilekani, Rohini Pande, Nicholas Ryan, Anish Sugathan
Abstract
​India’s population is exposed to dangerously high levels of air pollution. Using a combination of ground-level in situ measurements and satellite-based remote sensing data, this paper estimates that 660 million people, over half of India’s population, live in areas that exceed the Indian National Ambient Air Quality Standard for fine particulate pollution. Reducing pollution in these areas to achieve the standard would, we estimate, increase life expectancy for these Indians by 3.2 years on average for a total of 2.1 billion life years. We outline directions for environmental policy to start achieving these gains
Media
​Times of India, International Business Times, Hindustan Times, ​Quartz , Hindustan Times B, The Hans India, Irish Independent (Press Association), Economic Times, The Hindu, NDTV, UPI, The Weather Network, NY Times Editorial, Deutsche Welle, NewX, One India, Shahernama, AP story in:  US News & World Report, Fox Business, Miami Herald, Bangkok Post, Herald Standard, Chicago Tribune, The Tribune, Huffington Post, ABC News, Philippine Star, South China Morning Post, Asian Image, Pennsylvania Tribune, RYOT, Seattle Times, Arkansas Online,  Saudi Gazette, Macau Daily Times, PTI story in: Economic Times, NDTV, Financial Express, The Hindu, State Times, The Health Site, Khaleej Times, International Business Times, DNA India, Business Standard, Deccan Herald, Asian Age, Zee News India, IBN Live, Huffington Post, IANS story in Economic Times, Indian Express, Times of India, The Shillong Times, Khaleej Times, Silicon India
Deconstructing the Rosenfeld Curve: Making sense of California's low electricity intensity. 2013. Energy Economics, Vol. 39, 197-207
Abstract
Regulatory regimes that have increased household energy efficiency are of widespread interest to policymakers today. A prominent example is the state of California where electricity intensities in the residential sector have stayed near constant since the 1970s in sharp contrast to nationwide trends in the United States. A structural model of residential energy consumption is used to show that the use of energy intensities alone to evaluate the success of California efficiency programs is misleading and glosses over important policy independent factors. We quantify important effects of price, climate conditions and demographic characteristics on energy consumption in California. We also provide evidence of split incentive considerations in residential energy consumption patterns. We conclude that while state policy may have had some effect on efficiency, caution needs to be exercised in using the California example to inform expectations from similar measures in other regions.
Noronha, Ligia and Anant Sudarshan (eds). 2009. India’s Energy Security. Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series. New York: Routledge (Edited volume)
How can economic schemes curtail the increasing sex ratio at birth in China?’. 2008. Demographic Research. Vol 19. pp. 1831-1850. (with Bhattacharjya, D., Tuljapurkar, S., Shachter, R. and Marcus Feldman).
Abstract
Fertility decline, driven by the one-child policy, and son preference have contributed to an alarming difference in the number of live male and female births in China. We present a quantitative model where people choose to sex-select because they perceive that married sons are more valuable than married daughters. Due to the predominant patrilocal kinship system in China, daughters-in-law provide valuable emotional and financial support, enhancing the perceived present value of married sons. We argue that inter-generational transfer data will help ascertain the extent to which economic schemes (such as pension plans for families with no sons) can curtail the increasing sex ratio at birth.
Other​
​Monitoring Industrial Pollution in India. Introduction to Development Engineering, Madon, Temina, Gadgil, Ashok J, Anderson, Richard, Casaburi, Lorenzo, Lee, Kenneth, Rezaee, Arman (editors)., Springer Nature.
Modeling fine-grained spatio-temporal pollution maps with low-cost sensors. Nov 2022. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science 5, 76 (2022).​
Shiva Iyer, Ananth Balashankar (New York University), William H. Aeberhard (Swiss Data Science Center) Ulzee An (University of California Los Angeles), Sujoy Bhattacharya (Columbia University), Giuditta Rusconi (Evidence for Policy Design India at IFMR Lead), Anant Sudarshan (University of Chicago), Rohini Pande (Yale University), Lakshminarayan Subramanian (New York University). 
Abstract
The use of air quality monitoring networks to inform urban policies is critical especially where urban populations are exposed to unprecedented levels of air pollution. High costs, however, limit city governments' ability to deploy reference grade air quality monitors at scale; for instance, only 33 reference grade monitors are available for the entire territory of Delhi, India, spanning 1500 sq km with 15 million residents. In this paper, we describe a high-precision spatio-temporal prediction model that can be used to derive fine-grained pollution maps. We utilize two years of data from a low-cost monitoring network of 28 custom-designed low-cost portable air quality sensors covering a dense region of Delhi. The model uses a combination of message-passing recurrent neural networks combined with conventional spatio-temporal geostatistics models to achieve high predictive accuracy in the face of high data variability and intermittent data availability from low-cost sensors (due to sensor faults, network, and power issues). Using data from reference grade monitors for validation, our spatio-temporal pollution model can make predictions within 1-hour time-windows at 9.4, 10.5, and 9.6% Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) over our low-cost monitors, reference grade monitors, and the combined monitoring network respectively. These accurate fine-grained pollution sensing maps provide a way forward to build citizen-driven low-cost monitoring systems that detect hazardous urban air quality at fine-grained granularities.
Real-time Feedback and Electricity Consumption: A Field Experiment Assessing the Potential for Savings and Persistence’. 2013. The Energy Journal, Vol. 34(1). (with Sebastien Houde, Annika Todd, June A. Flora and Carrie Armel
Abstract
Real-time information feedback delivered via technology has been reported to produce up to 20 percent declines in residential energy consumption. There are however large differences in estimates of the effect of real-time feedback technologies on energy use. In this study, we conduct a field experiment to obtain an estimate of the impact of a real-time feedback technology. Access to feedback leads to an average reduction in household electricity consumption of 5. 7 percent. Significant declines persist for up to four weeks. In examining time of day reduction effects, we find that the largest reductions were observed initially at all times of the day but as time passes, morning and evening intervals show larger reductions. We find no convincing evidence that household characteristics explain heterogeneity in our treatment effects ; we examine demographics, housing characteristics and psychological variables.
Psychohistory Revisited: Fundamental issues in forecasting climate futures. 2011. Climatic Change, Vol. 104(3-4), pp 457-472. (with Cullenward, D., Schipper, L., and Howarth, R).

Transport and carbon emissions in the United States: The long view’. 2011. Energies (Special Issue on Energy-Friendly Transportation), Vol. 4(4). pp 563-581. (with Schipper, L. and Saenger, C.).

Coal Supply: The Fallacy of Abundance. 2008. In The Coal Dilemma. New Delhi: TERI Press. S.K.Chand (editor)

Weather data mining using independent component analysis. 2004. Journal of Machine Learning Research. Vol 5. pp. 239-253. (with Basak, J., Trivedi, D. and M. S. Santhanam).
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​Selected Ongoing Projects
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