Working Papers
Title: Designing large procurement auctions: India’s utility-scale electricity market (Job market paper)
Abstract: Auctions for large-scale procurement of electricity production capacity have become important policy tools for achieving energy security and improving electricity access in developing countries. These auctions have procurement targets that often exceed any supplier's capacity, resulting in nuanced allocation rules. In this paper, I study allocation efficiency and auctioneer's payoff in these auctions and suggest ways to improve them. I use India as my leading example, where a non-trivial variant of US treasury auctions has helped create 140 gigawatts of capacity, which is fourth largest globally. I theoretically prove that the design of these auctions incentivises lower-capacity firms to be more competitive. Such firms may get larger contracts despite having higher costs, leading to inefficient allocation. To measure the inefficiency, I first estimate a structural model to find firms' cost distributions using a recent dataset. Then, I simulate the theoretical equilibrium with estimated cost distributions to quantify the inefficiency. I further suggest counterfactual designs which lower the inefficiency and government expenditure, without reducing capacity allocation.
Presentations:
ESEM Barcelona 2023
CEPR Paris Symposium 2023
HEC PhD Conference 2023
EARIE Rome 2023
SAET Paris 2023
Stony Brook Game theory festival 2023
EARIE Amsterdam 2024
Theory, Orgaisation and Markets seminar at PSE
Regulation, Environment and Markets seminar at PSE
Work in progress
Title: Procurement with rationing of capacity-constrained suppliers
Title: When the Earth is Too Hot to Handle: Experimental Evidence on Protecting Manual Outdoor Workers from Extreme Heat
(Joint with Aditi Kharb and Akansh Khandelwal)
Baseline study funded by India Sustainable Growth Hub (ISGH) and the International Growth Centre (IGC)'s grant award
Title: Tailoring procurement to achieve social outcomes: case of Wastewater treament plants in Haryana
(Joint with Aditi Kharb)
Projects in exploratory phase :
These projects are very new and have been part of some good formal discussions. Open to collaborations :)
Externalities and mechanisms: Mechanisms like auctions have been traditionally used to find the highest value user for any product. However, most of the theoretical literature doesn't account for the possibility that some losing bidders may have low private value, but their end-use of the product may be creating positive social externalities. This defeats the purpose of the auction, which was to provide maximum social benefits. Any mechanism to allot goods/services which have such externalities needs to be carefully designed, if the auctioneer wants maximum social benefit.
Effects of large-scale solar and wind farms on the local economy and environment: Large-scale solar and wind farms require vast tracts of land. Although this land may be officially classified as a wasteland, it often supports thriving biodiversity that sustains local populations. Building solar and wind farms on such lands can disrupt the local environment and negatively impact the communities that depend on it. This study is motivated by such stories, as well as the ongoing debate in the USA regarding land use for renewable power projects.
Firm productivity and political connections: Corporate campaign donations are common across democracies. In this study, I explore the link between a firm's productivity and its campaign donations. A firm may be more productive, generating higher profits, part of which it donates to political parties. Alternatively, a firm might achieve higher profits and revenues due to preferential treatment from its political connections. Using campaign donation data from the Election Commission of India and balance sheet data from Orbis, this study aims to examine the direction of the relationship between productivity and political connections.