Contributor : Profile
Prof. Nicholas Ryan joined Yale University as a Cowles Foundation Fellow for 2014-15 and an assistant professor of economics from 2015 onwards. He has been a Prize Fellow in Economics at Harvard University from 2012-2014. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2012 and a B.A. in economics summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania. He previously worked as a research associate in the Capital Markets group at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, DC.
Prof. Ryan studies energy markets and environmental regulation in developing countries. Energy use enables high standards of living but rapid, energy-intensive growth has caused many environmental problems in turn. Prof. Ryan's research measures how energy use and pollution emissions respond to regulation and market incentives. His work includes empirical studies of the effect of power grid capacity on electricity prices, how firms make decisions about energy-efficiency, and how environmental regulation can be designed to best abate pollution at low social cost.
Posts by Nicholas Ryan
Is electrification in India fiscally sustainable?
In the first article in the Ideas@IPF2023 series, Barnwal and Ryan describe the completion of household electrification in India as a fiscal feat, notwithstanding the persistent losses recorded by ele...
- Prabhat Barnwal Nicholas Ryan
- 11 July, 2023
- Perspectives
Clearing the air: The effects of transparency on plant pollution emissions
Of the 20 cities in the world with the worst fine particulate air pollution, 13 are in India. If good information on who pollutes is available, then traditional environmental regulation can bring down...
- Michael Greenstone Rohini Pande Nicholas Ryan Anant Sudarshan
- 31 December, 2017
- IGC Research on India
Star power: Rating industries in Maharashtra by emission levels
Maharashtra Pollution Control Board recently launched a programme to rate industries based on their emission levels – the first such initiative by a government regulator. An easy and accessible way...
- Michael Greenstone Rohini Pande Nicholas Ryan Anant Sudarshan
- 25 July, 2017
- Perspectives
Let Them Buy Light: The Welfare Benefits of Electricity for Rural Households and Enterprises
This project measured the welfare effects of increased access to electricity for rural households and micro-enterprises by letting them buy light. The research design experimentally offers off-grid, s...
- Robin Burgess Michael Greenstone Nicholas Ryan Anant Sudarshan
- 08 August, 2016
- IGC Research on India
Building Environmental Regulation that Enables Growth
This project is linked to a broader research-policy collaboration with India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), and State Pollution Control Boards ...
- Michael Greenstone Rohini Pande Nicholas Ryan Anant Sudarshan
- 30 June, 2016
- IGC Research on India
Lighting Up Bihar: Electrification to Sustain Economic Growth
This project looks at incentivising consumers to pay for the electricity consumed by the area in Bihar. The intervention specifically links the duration of supply to the payment performance of a group...
- Robin Burgess Nicholas Ryan Anant Sudarshan
- 31 December, 2013
- IGC Research on India
Emissions Trading as an Environmental Innovation in India: Measuring the Policy Impact on Emissions and Abatement Costs
Growth in developing countries has improved living standards of millions, but has led to high pollution concentrations and serious public health damages. Market-based environmental regulation can redu...
- Michael Greenstone Rohini Pande Nicholas Ryan Anant Sudarshan
- 31 March, 2012
- IGC Research on India
Third-party environmental auditing
High levels of industrial pollution are a harmful by-product of growth. The Indian state of Gujarat is an industrial powerhouse with about 5% of the Indian population, but 9% of India’s registered m...
- Esther Duflo Michael Greenstone Rohini Pande Nicholas Ryan
- 01 March, 2012
- IGC Research on India