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EE Seminar

Environmental Economics Seminar

The Local Economic Benefits versus Environmental Costs of India’s Coal-Fired Power Plants

Speaker

Geoffrey Barrows
CNRS - École Polytechnique

Website

Abstract

Developing countries characterized by increasing electricity demand face a dilemma: fossil-fuel fired generation is cheap and reliable yet has substantial environmental consequences.  Using a difference-in-differences approach comparing locations close to versus far away from coal-fired power plants in India, we show that increases in coal-fired capacity result in sizable increases in local air pollution levels and infant mortality. In contrast, using data on firm-level outcomes, district-level agricultural outcomes, and district-level “night-lights”, we find that coal-fired capacity increases have relatively small (but precisely estimated) impacts on local economic benefits.  Combined, our results indicate that the environmental costs of coal-fired power plants vary substantially over space while the economic benefits from these plants are distributed across the state or region; this suggests that coal-fired power plants should be sited based primarily on their environmental costs.

Practical information

Location

UMR CEE-M
Montpellier SupAgro / INRA - Bat. 26 - Centre de documentation Pierre Bartoli
2 Place Viala 34000 Montpellier

Dates & time

May 04, 2018
11:00
04
May

Contact

Julie Subervie
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Gwenolé Le Velly
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