Publication

1. Does access to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) reduce women household burden? Evidence from India Mehtabul Azam Energy Economics

Using the nationally representative Indian Time Use Survey, we study whether the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as cooking fuel affects the time spent in cooking and employment activities for Indian rural women. We instrument the use of LPG by a leave-one-out spatial instrument constructed by taking the average level of LPG use in the village where the average is calculated leaving the concerned household. We find no impact of LPG on the probability of women participating in cooking activities. However, the use of LPG reduces (increases) time spent in cooking (employment) activities. We also find evidence of rebound effect where the use of LPG leads to marginally more cooking events in a day. We find that LPG’s impact on time spent in cooking and employment is mostly driven by married women.

Working Paper

1. Does the Belt and Road Initiative Help Chinese Automobile Exports? (with Bidisha Lahiri)

We examine whether China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative assisted its export performance in the final automobile sector, a market that has been challenging for the Chinese economy. We use the heterogeneity robust DID estimators for staggered timing. We also control for anticipation effects and potential BRI selection endogeneity using IVs. Our estimates find that China’s final automobile exports to the BRI partner destination countries after these countries became signatories are almost double that of the export to non-BRI partner destinations, and the effect for net-exports is an increase of about 59%. Sub-sample analyses indicate that the positive effect is stronger for China’s export to lower-income partners compared to its exports to relatively higher income destinations. The results are robust across alternate methods and specifications.

2. Fuel Switching and Labor Supply of Rural Women in India

Using the nationally representative Indian Human Development Survey, we study whether use of cleaner energy source for cooking leads to increased female work participation. We categorize women household into three groups by the cooking fuel they use: biomass, mixed fuel, and modern fuel. The methodology used in this paper is difference-in-differences with multivalued treatment. We find that switching from solid to mixed fuel negatively affects women's work participation. This study also confirms that switching from mixed to modern fuel will increase the probability of female work participation in rural India significantly. Moreover, we do not find any average treatment effect on the female work participation for households who maintain the status quo.

3. The Efficiency of Industries in India: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis

This article investigates the efficiency of firms in the Indian manufacturing sector, using a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) of a data set of 42,772 firms during the period 2014-2015 in India. We then apply a continuous treatment approach Generalized Propensity Score (GPS) methodology to investigate the export intensity and production growth. Our empirical results indicate that larger firms tend to be more efficient; rural-located firms and firms with ISO (International Organization for Standardization) certification are more efficient than firms without the certification. Furthermore, we find that firms' export share has a causal effect on production growth within a specific level of export share. The dose-response reveals an inverted-U shape between the export share intensity and production growth.