Priyanka Dutta

Auction design has played a central role in shaping renewable energy markets globally. We study the effect of auction format changes on the prices and efficiency in the procurement of green energy using data on the universe of solar procurement auctions in India from 2015 − 2021. Exploiting variation in auction formats at central and state levels, we find that open (reverse) auctions lower tariff bids by 8 − 17 percent relative to sealed-bid formats. Markups, measured via bid-to-cost ratios, are 11 − 20 percent lower under open auctions. We provide causal evidence of deviation from the Revenue Equivalence Theorem and attribute it to the presence of interdependent costs. Structural estimates with affiliated costs corroborate the causal findings, showing a 16.12 percent reduction in winning bids under open format relative to sealed format. Considering the 104 open auctions conducted during this period, total government savings over the 25-year contract horizon are estimated at approximately 5.52 billion USD. Together, these findings highlight the efficiency gains from open auctions in the procurement of green energy and suggest that such formats can accelerate the global transition to a cleaner future.

Are consumers best served in a purely private regime with efficient but profit-maximizing private firms, a purely public regime with inefficient but welfare-maximizing public firms, or a mixed regime com- prising both efficient private firms and welfare-oriented public firms? In standard symmetric oligopolies (e.g., homogenous product Cournot and differentiated Bertrand) consumer surplus (CS) is highest either when all firms are public or when all firms are private. A mixed regime never delivers the maximum CS. When firms exhibit innate cost heterogeneity unrelated to ownership, mixed markets can fare better than both public and private regimes when high-cost firms are privatized. A mixed regime where only relatively low-cost firms are private is never in the best interest of consumers and indeed can be worse than a fully public or fully private regime. As a by-product of our analysis, we uncover a possible non-monotone relationship between competi- tion and privatization under Cournot, and a novel regime-contingent best response function under Bertrand competition.

India has made significant strides in expanding its solar market since initiating pilot projects in 1980. This exceptional growth can be attributed to various central and state solar policies. The major push in 2014 came from the central government with the introduction of the Viability Gap Funding (VGF) scheme under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM). This initiative included a bidding process on the asking capital subsidy to allocate capacity among developers. Using a novel auction dataset from $2010-2021$, we investigate whether the provision of capital subsidies has contributed to reducing overall solar power tariffs. Our analysis, based on a generalized difference-in-differences (DiD) approach, indicates that the implementation of the VGF scheme resulted in a reduction of the effective feed-in tariff (FiT) inclusive of subsidies by $1.71$ standard deviations during the post-treatment period relative to the year preceding the policy implementation. Additionally, we find that the subsidy led to central policy projects experiencing lower effective tariffs compared to state policy projects. Also, there is some suggestive evidence that market concentration increased following the implementation of subsidy policy.

For many products and services, consumers’ utility declines as the firm they purchase from expands its consumer base. An increase in the number of patients leads to longer waiting times in hospitals. Internet connection speeds slow down as the number of users grows. Service delays become more frequent with an increase in the number of customers. Disutility arising from congestion is evident in several sectors, including healthcare, telecommunications, and banking. These sectors, where congestion occurs, are often served by both public and private firms, which differ in two key aspects: efficiency and objectives. Private firms are more efficient and focus on profit maximization, whereas public firms are relatively inefficient and focus on welfare maximization. We examine how firms respond to an increase in congestion disutility and how the presence of congestion affects the choice between public and private provision. We begin with the case of a monopoly. As congestion disutility increases, both public and private monopolists reduce the number of consumers they serve. A public monopolist raises prices in response to increased congestion. However, a private monopolist’s pricing strategy may vary depending on demand conditions—prices might increase, decrease, or remain unchanged (as is the case with linear demand). The relationship between investment in capacity and congestion disutility is non-monotonic: investment in capacity increases if and only if congestion disutility is below a certain threshold. Regardless of the metric used—welfare, consumer surplus, or prices—we find that congestion tends to favor private over public provision. Notably, in congested markets, private provision can deliver higher consumer surplus despite higher prices. All these results obtained under monopoly also hold in the presence of competition. Furthermore, competition facilitates private provision.

Mixed markets are defined by the coexistence of public and private firms. Historically, public firms have dominated the markets in developing and transition economies. Empirical evidence suggests that public firms tend to be more inefficient compared to their private counterparts. As a result, many of these economies embarked on the privatization of public enterprises in the hope of improving market efficiency. We consider a vertically related market, with upstream and downstream firms interacting in a two-stage production process. Public firms in both sectors introduce two layers of inefficiency, while private firms in both sectors generate two rounds of markups, a classic double marginalization problem. We show that a mixed regime can yield the highest consumer surplus by eliminating one layer of inefficiency and one round of markup. This outcome is most likely when markups are moderate and inefficiencies are unevenly distributed across the two sectors. If the inefficiency of public firms is symmetric across the upstream and downstream sectors, mixed regimes tend to perform intermediately or even poorly in terms of consumer surplus. However, when public firm inefficiencies differ sufficiently across sectors, and markup levels are not too high, a mixed structure can outperform both extremes. Thus, the interaction between vertical structure, firm efficiency, and market power plays a critical role in shaping welfare outcomes in privatization decisions

India’s renewable energy transition—aiming for 500 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030—positions large solar parks as pivotal to national climate goals, yet their rapid expansion has generated profound socio- ecological trade-offs. This research critically examines these unintended consequences, highlighting how solar parks’ “green” classification and exemption from environmental clearance have encouraged land acquisition in fertile or ecologically sensitive areas, displacing agricultural and pastoral communities and deepening social inequalities along caste, class, and gender lines. Ecologically, the conversion of diverse landscapes into industrial installations has led to habitat fragmentation, species displacement, and threats to endangered fauna such as the Great Indian Bustard. Combining spatial and biodiversity data with household and labour surveys, complemented by field-based qualitative research, the study quantifies both ecological and social impacts to inform more equitable and sustainable renewable energy planning. Its findings will contribute to policy frameworks that integrate environmental justice with climate action, ensuring that India’s clean- energy expansion supports not only decarbonisation but also biodiversity conservation and social well-being.