Publications
Environmental regulations and air pollution in India: A reexamination - Journal of Applied Econometrics 40 (2025): 569–576
This paper reexamines the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of environmental regulations in India, originally presented by Greenstone and Hanna (GH, 2014), who reported that air pollution control policies in India have successfully improved air quality. Leveraging recent advances in satellite technology and GH’s methodology, I test the sensitivity of their findings to revised air pollution outcomes. Contrary to GH’s conclusions, the analysis reveals limited empirical support for the effectiveness of the examined air pollution control policies.
Decoding Green Justice: An AI-Assisted Exploration of Indian Environmental Rulings over Five Decades (with Behrer, A. P., Joshi, S., Nagarathinam, V., Neis, P., & Singh, S. ) - Proceedings of the First Argument Mining and Empirical Legal Research Workshop (AMELR 2025) (pp. 30–38). CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 4089
This study demonstrates the potential of large language models (LLMs) to analyze environmental court rulings from India. Using a novel dataset of 12,615 environmental court orders spanning three decades, we evaluate the performance of two LLMs - GPT-4 API and Claude 3.5 Sonnet - in coding and interpreting judicial decisions. The LLMs are tasked with identifying pro-environmental rulings and extracting key case attributes, with their performance benchmarked against human coders who analyzed 1,910 rulings. Both models achieve approximately 70% accuracy compared to human coding, with the GPT-4 API showing slightly better performance in various sub-samples. These findings suggest promising applications for AI to improve access to and analysis of legal data, particularly in jurisdictions where administrative records lack standardization.
Health benefits of air pollution reduction: Evidence from economic slowdown in India - Economics and Human Biology 55 (2024): 101437
This paper evaluates health benefits associated with the impact of air pollution reduction on infant mortality in India. Leveraging plausibly exogenous geographic variation in air pollution due to the post-2010 economic slowdown—a period largely overlooked in the literature—I find that improvements in air quality resulted in a significant decline in infant mortality, particularly through respiratory diseases and biological pathways such as in utero and post-birth exposure. The associated health benefits correspond to 1338 saved infant lives, translating to monetary gains of $312.5 million. The paper advances our understanding of the link between air pollution and human health in settings with elevated air pollution and suboptimal regulatory frameworks.
Working Papers
Cold plays: Temperature and manufacturing production in India
(with Liu, T.)
Reject & Resubmit in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
Courting Clean Air: Legal Mandates and Air Quality Outcomes in Delhi, India
(with Behrer, A. P. and Joshi, S.)
Submitted
Malaria Larger mangrove forests carry lower and healthier ones higher malaria risk: the importance of integrating mangrove conservation with vector management at local scale
(with Cruz-Laufer, A. J., Dahdouh-Guebas, F., Díaz-Morales, D., Vanhove, M. P. M., and Wood C. L.)
Submitted
Impact of Climate Initiatives on Emissions and Human Development in Africa
(with Sifat, I., Small, R., and Wagner, N.)
Economic Investment and Political Divergence in Belt and Road Nations
(with de Sonnaville, L. and Sifat, I.)
Work in Progress
Female Leaders and Biodiversity Outcomes: Evidence from Local Elections in India
(with Fabeha, F., Wagner, N., and De Lucia, C.)
Ethnic Voting and Pitfalls of Local Development: Evidence from Village Elections in India
(with Bohn, F., Nguyen, H., and Wang, X.)
Green Justice in India: Outcomes and Policy Focus of Environmental Litigation, 1990-2024
(with Behrer, A. P. and Joshi, S.)
Migration Responses to Urban Heat in Latin America
(with Bergner, E. and Wagner, N.)
Climate change and migration in Africa: A sub-national analysis
(with Solano, G. and Arts, D.)
A Well-Done Policy? Carbon Leakage in the Meat Industry
(with Dekker, T.)
Subsidizing Sustainability: Evidence from a Dutch Municipal Policy to Reduce Energy Use
(with Bosters, E.)
Climate mitigation and adaptation strategies tailored for different types of cities in Europe: A typology and associated systematic review
(with Creutzig, F., Kopp, M., Wagner, N., and Nair, A.)
Other Publications
Decoding Green Justice: AI-Assisted Analysis of Environmental Court Rulings in India. IGC Policy Brief, 2025
(with Behrer, A. P., Chen, D. L., Joshi, S., Nagarathinam, V., Neis, P., and Singh, S.)
What AI reveals about the state of environmental justice in India. IGC Blog, 2025
(with Behrer, A. P., Chen, D. L., Joshi, S., Nagarathinam, V., Neis, P., and Singh, S.)
Economic Impact of COVID-19 lockdown in Malaysia: A View from Space. SPACEKNOW Blog, 2021.