Ongoing – CECFEE

Modelling extreme weather events in fishery dynamics

Research Team: Purnedu Mishra, Anuwedita Singh, Barkha Tiwari Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: India’s fisheries, though increasingly productive, face mounting threats from cyclones and marine heatwaves that disrupt catches and livelihoods, especially for small-boat fishers and women processors. This project will build the country’s first dynamic, data-driven model to forecast fishery outcomes under extreme weather, informing adaptive policy through bio-economic simulations calibrated to two decades of landings and revenue data.

Household electricity subsidies and investments in energy efficiency

Research Team: Maitri Punjabi, Prabhat Barnwal Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: This project studies how household electricity subsidies in Punjab affect electricity consumption, discom finances, and energy efficiency investments. Using administrative billing data and household surveys, the research analyzes responses to a subsidy that waives electricity payments for households consuming below 10 kWh daily. The study examines bunching behavior around the threshold, consumer decision-making, and impacts on carbon emissions and power infrastructure, generating insights relevant for India and other developing countries.

Drinking Water Quality in Rural India

Research Team: Aditya Shrinivas, Namrata Kala, Gopal Naik, Anna Tompsett, Hemant Pullabhotla Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: This study evaluates the impact of large-scale water purification systems on water quality and health outcomes in rural India, where contamination remains widespread. Using detailed village-level data, it analyses treatment effectiveness, potential negative externalities, and data integrity to inform sustainable water and environmental policy.

Vehicle electrification, air pollution and the role of time-of-day tariffs in India

Research Team: Anshuman Tiwari, Piyush Bhardwaj, Rahul Tongia, Anomitro Chatterjee Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: This study examines how electric vehicle (EV) adoption in Indian cities affects PM2.5 pollution and evaluates time-of-day (ToD) electricity tariffs for pollution control. Using updated city-specific emission inventories, pollution dispersion models, and time-varying emission factors, the research estimates net pollution impacts of EV adoption. A field experiment with an EV taxi fleet in Bengaluru measures charging demand responsiveness to hourly pricing. The study assesses how alternative ToD tariffs can balance peak-load management and pollution reduction in India.

The heterogeneous impacts of air pollution on workers

Research Team: Anshuman Tiwari, Edward Rubin, Shefali Khanna Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: Air pollution from coal-fired power plants in India is a major health risk, yet its economic impacts on households are poorly understood. This project uses detailed data and machine learning to assess how pollution affects individual incomes, considering factors like income-based adaptation. The findings will inform policies to regulate power plants and highlight benefits for health and climate.

Novel approaches to incentivising reduction in groundwater use

Research Team: Ram Fishman, Karun Verma Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: This project investigates whether one-time subsidies for irrigation technologies in Punjab can effectively promote adoption, improve verification, and reduce water use. It contrasts these “second-best” incentives with volumetric pricing, aiming to generate new evidence on their real-world performance in addressing groundwater depletion and climate resilience in Indian agriculture.

When the Earth is Too Hot to Handle: Experimental Evidence on Protecting Manual Outdoor Workers from Extreme Heat

Research Team: Akansh Khandelwal, Aditi Kharb, Manpreet Singh Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: This study investigates how extreme heat affects productivity and well-being among outdoor manual workers under India’s MGNREGA programme. Using data from 60 worksites in Haryana, it combines administrative, experimental, and behavioural methods to measure heat impacts, worker preferences for cooling strategies, and gender-differentiated effects.

Weathering the waste: Climate adaptation and food loss among urban street vendors

Research Team: Lachi Singh, Swati Dhingra Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: This project investigates how climate change affects informal food distribution systems by evaluating scalable interventions to reduce food loss and waste among street vendors in India. The study generates new evidence on how simple adaptations can improve vendor livelihoods and position them as key actors in urban climate resilience.

Farm Size Matters: Evidence from Indian Agriculture

Research Team: Animesh Jayant, Daniel Sturm Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: Climate change threatens productivity in low-income countries, but reallocating production factors can support adaptation. This study examines how reallocating agricultural land across farm sizes may reduce climate damages and how mobility and market frictions limit adaptation. Since farms differ in scale and technology, their climate sensitivities also vary. Focusing on India, the research aims to inform policies on land reforms and insurance schemes to balance climate resilience, agricultural productivity, and sustainable growth, with implications for South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Digitizing Historical, Monthly Plant-Level Panel Data on Labor Outcomes

Research Team: Utkarsh Saxena, Ananya Kotia, Robin Burgess Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: The study seeks to digitize historical plant-level data from India from the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) for research purposes. The project focuses on ASI Part II, which contains monthly labor-related data such as working days, absenteeism, labor turnover, earnings, and social security benefits. These records, covering the period 1960–2005, are stored in over 175 magnetic tapes and 25 floppy disks available with the Labor Bureau archives. Since the Labor Bureau does not have the equipment to read these tapes, the project aims to digitize and preserve this valuable data and later make it freely accessible to researchers through the Labor Bureau’s data portal. The digitized data will help researchers study industrial labor trends, seasonality, weather shocks, and long-term plant-level analysis in India.

Levelling the playing field: Clean energy dispatch under long-term power purchase agreements in India

Research Team: Shefali Khanna, Robin Burgess, Mar Reguant, Claudia Gentile Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: This project investigates whether the tariff structures defined in long-term power purchase agreements distort dispatch decisions in favour of fossil fuels. It analyses whether renewable energy is routinely curtailed despite its ”must-run” status, and models how a more efficient dispatch mechanism based on the merit order could enhance the clean energy share.

Discrimination and segregation in the rental housing market

Research Team: Hamza Mohammad Syed, Michael Callen Funded By: India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) Description: Discrimination appears to play a significant role in residential segregation in Delhi’s rental housing market, with Muslim tenants being 20 percent more likely to face denials despite controlling for other factors. This project aims to survey brokers, tenants, and landlords to map discriminatory practices and understand how these shape housing decisions and climate adaptation in minority areas.