Empirical essays on firm behavior in India

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2012.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ryan, Nicholas (Nicholas James)
Other Authors: Esther Duflo and Michael Greenstone.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77797
_version_ 1811086857246605312
author Ryan, Nicholas (Nicholas James)
author2 Esther Duflo and Michael Greenstone.
author_facet Esther Duflo and Michael Greenstone.
Ryan, Nicholas (Nicholas James)
author_sort Ryan, Nicholas (Nicholas James)
collection MIT
description Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2012.
first_indexed 2024-09-23T13:35:46Z
format Thesis
id mit-1721.1/77797
institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology
language eng
last_indexed 2024-09-23T13:35:46Z
publishDate 2013
publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology
record_format dspace
spelling mit-1721.1/777972019-04-11T06:59:02Z Empirical essays on firm behavior in India Ryan, Nicholas (Nicholas James) Esther Duflo and Michael Greenstone. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics. Economics. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2012. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 143-149). In this thesis, I study the behavior of industrial firms in India in the electricity market and with respect to locational choice and environmental regulation. In the first chapter, I study the competitive effects of transmission infrastructure on market outcomes in the Indian day-ahead electricity market. Transmission constraints may increase local market power by limiting competition across regions. I find that bidders in import-constrained regions do raise bid prices in response to congestion and I simulate the effects of relaxing transmission constraints using a structural model of power-market bidding. The welfare gain from infrastructure expansion is large as a share of market surplus and mostly due to the strategic responses of bidders to a better-integrated market. In the second chapter, I study the agglomeration of manufacturing activity in India. Industry in India is shown to be spatially agglomerated to an extent similar to that observed in the United States and perhaps slightly greater. All the Marshallian forces of linkages in goods, labor and ideas between industries are important for industrial colocation, with hiring similar workers the strongest predictor of coagglomeration patterns. Finally, in the third chapter, my advisors, Esther Duflo and Michael Greenstone, Rohini Pande and I measure the effects of auditor independence on the reliability of reports by third-party environmental auditors and the regulatory compliance of the firms they audit, using a field experiment. We find that a reformed audit system in which auditors were randomly assigned to plants, monitored and given incentives for accuracy greatly improves the accuracy of auditor reporting, as measured by independent backchecks of true pollution levels. Moreover, the treatment plants subject to greater scrutiny under the reformed audit system responded by reducing pollution output relative to the control group. by Nicholas James Ryan. Ph.D. 2013-03-13T15:48:12Z 2013-03-13T15:48:12Z 2012 2012 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77797 828115620 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 149 p. application/pdf a-ii--- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Economics.
Ryan, Nicholas (Nicholas James)
Empirical essays on firm behavior in India
title Empirical essays on firm behavior in India
title_full Empirical essays on firm behavior in India
title_fullStr Empirical essays on firm behavior in India
title_full_unstemmed Empirical essays on firm behavior in India
title_short Empirical essays on firm behavior in India
title_sort empirical essays on firm behavior in india
topic Economics.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77797
work_keys_str_mv AT ryannicholasnicholasjames empiricalessaysonfirmbehaviorinindia