Please join us for a virtual paper discussion presented by author Zhanhan Yu (Career Development Fellow at (University of Glasgow) and comments made by discussant Danae Hernandez-Cortes (Assistant Professor at Arizona State University). 

We assess the environmental impact of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), a place-based policy aimed at promoting economic development in India. Specifically, we examine the unintended effects of the policy on firms' energy consumption and carbon emissions. Using extensive firm-level data and a spatial RD-DiD design, we find that SEZs result in a significant 30% reduction in firms' carbon emissions, primarily driven by a shift from conventional energy to lower-carbon renewable alternatives. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that this substantial decline is largely driven by larger firms and those in regions with better access to cleaner energy.

This public lecture series is organized by the 21st Century India Center at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS). For more information on India activities, please visit india.ucsd.edu.