Subhadip Ghosh

We develop a two-stage game with vertically differentiated products and endogenous environmental quality to study unilateral carbon pricing and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). A home EU firm and a foreign exporter choose environmental quality, then compete in prices. Under unilateral pricing, only the home firm is taxed, so the foreign exporter’s quality choice responds only indirectly through competition, not a direct tax-saving motive. CBAM corrects this by taxing imports, too. We show that this correction can defeat itself: the same charge that incentivizes upgrading also contracts the foreign firm’s margin and market share, and once the carbon price exceeds a parameter-dependent threshold, this contraction can dominate, leaving the firm choosing lower quality under CBAM than under unilateral pricing. We analytically show that, sufficiently close to free trade, the foreign firm’s equilibrium quality is higher under CBAM than under unilateral pricing, so quality backfire is a finite-carbon-price equilibrium reversal rather than a local artifact, and numerically show that the reversal occurs over a substantial part of the admissible parameter region and survives several robustness checks. A second channel, where CBAM narrows the quality gap, could increase aggregate emissions, but the backfire is not realized in our calibration. The results provide a game-theoretic explanation of how border carbon policies shape strategic quality competition in carbon-intensive trade.

This paper studies the interaction between status incentives and organizational design in a two-agent moral hazard framework with limited liability. A risk-neutral principal chooses between two regimes: favouritism, under which one agent receives exclusive decision rights and status recognition for successful project implementation, and fairness, under which both agents share equal decision rights and status is distributed across agents. We show that status incentives can make ex-post favouritism optimal even when the principal does not exhibit any ex-ante preferential bias toward any particular agent. Introduction of status incentives shrink the parameter region supporting interior inefficient favouritism, and eliminate it entirely whenever project returns are large enough to sustain interior contracts for both agents. We also show that, for a non-empty set of primitive parameter values, the principal’s optimal regime can be non-monotonic in status: favouritism is optimal when status valuation is sufficiently low or sufficiently high, while fairness may dominate for intermediate values. The results shed light on why selective, hierarchical recognition systems coexist with flat team-credit structures across organizations.

Crop insurance has to be priced and screened before the season’s main losses are known. This paper asks how far an insurer can get using only the information already available when a contract is enrolled: where the farm is, what crop and practice are insured, the chosen coverage level, and the local hail rate history. Using administrative records from 2006 to 2024, we build a practical underwriting score that separates the chance of a claim from the likely size of a loss, then test it on recent years and compare it with simpler rules and alternative models. The score ranks contracts better than regional averages, hail rate rules, or premium-based sorting, and the highest-ranked fifth of contracts contains about one third of the realized losses. Still, it misses much of the most severe loss risk. Coverage choice helps with prediction but also reflects farmer decisions, and thus the score should be read as a contract risk measure rather than a causal measure of hazard. These results suggest an enrollment-time information constraint for the specifications tested here, while leaving room for richer administrative and hazard-based extensions. Better tail prediction may require weather, farm history, and spatial information not used in the strict score.

The transition from non-renewable to renewable energy sources has emerged as a pressing global issue, driven by concerns over climate change, resource depletion, and the need for sustainable development. This study compares Canada, an energy-rich nation, and Bangladesh, an energy-scarce country, to understand the structural, institutional, and market factors driving their respective renewable energy transitions. Using univariate time-series models (ARIMA, ETS, and Prophet) for energy demand forecasting and extensive literature-based policy evaluation, the paper examines trends in energy production, consumption, and trade from 1990 to 2024. Our analysis indicates that Canada’s vast reserves of both renewable and non-renewable energy sources, its diversified energy portfolio, and carbon-pricing framework support a stable decarbonization pathway, with renewables projected to account for more than 20% of total supply by 2030. However, regional disparities and political resistance from the established energy sector continue to delay transition outcomes. On the other hand, Bangladesh has limited renewable and non-renewable energy sources, with its primary energy resource being natural gas reserves. Consequently, its heavy reliance on imports (over 75% of primary energy) and institutional bottlenecks expose its energy system to commodity-price volatility, undermining energy security and slowing renewable investment. Despite these challenges, targeted solar programs and concessional financing have modestly increased the penetration of renewable energy. The analysis highlights that commodity market fluctuations, technological innovations (such as smart grids and energy storage), and market-based policy instruments critically shape each country’s transition trajectory. A coordinated policy linking market stabilization, innovation investment, and social inclusion is essential for achieving a just and secure low-carbon transition in both countries.

This paper studies how population dynamics and a recoverable resource jointly constrain long-run sustainability in a continuous-time planner model. Output combines capital with a CES aggregate of labour and recoverable resource services, so the elasticity of substitution between population and the resource becomes a structural parameter. The resource regenerates but may collapse under sustained overuse, while the planner chooses fertility and resource-saving effort subject to a lower bound on per capita consumption. We first characterize a viability region: the set of initial conditions and admissible controls from which consumption can be kept above the floor while the resource remains above collapse. We then derive an optimal sustainability corridor, defined as the subset of the viability region that satisfies the planner's first-order conditions and therefore constitutes welfare-maximizing sustainable trajectories. This distinction separates technological-demographic feasibility from optimal policy choice. The analysis yields sharp threshold results. There exists a maximum sustainable population that depends on the elasticity of substitution, critical bounds on fertility below which sustainability is possible, and a joint necessity of demographic control, resource-saving effort, and substitution capacity. The framework provides a unified dynamic characterization of population-resource interactions in which viability constraints and optimal control jointly determine long-run sustainability.

Hartwick's Rule suggests that reinvesting resource rents in capital can sustain consumption over time. But this relies on the assumption that capital can fully substitute for natural resources, an assumption increasingly challenged by evidence. This paper revises Hartwick's Rule by allowing for limited substitutability between capital and resource inputs. Using a CES production function, we show that under imperfect substitution, the classical rule fails: output collapses even if all resource rents are saved. We propose a revised rule that directs investment toward renewable capital that replaces the lost resource flow. If substitution starts early, the economy avoids collapse and sustains consumption. This is the paper's key contribution: a formal, tractable model showing when and why Hartwick's rule breaks down, and how a transition-oriented investment strategy can restore sustainability. The revised rule strengthens the case for refining genuine savings indicators and aligning resource revenues with long-term capacity building.

The rising prevalence of greenwashing by firms has emerged as a major concern for regulatory authorities over the past decade. This paper examines the impact of regulation on firms’ strategic decisions regarding greenwashing and environmental quality in an oligopolistic market. We model two firms that compete on environmental quality and greenwashing levels, operating under the oversight of a regulatory authority. The authority’s policy instruments include a detection mechanism and fines imposed on firms engaging in greenwashing. Using a differential game-theoretical framework, we examine the effectiveness of regulatory interventions like detection and penalties in reducing greenwashing behavior and enhancing environmental quality. Additionally, we discuss the post-detection trajectories of both firms, providing insights into the effects on consumer perceptions and market competition. We find that while regulation can reduce greenwashing as expected, it may also reduce firms’ environmental quality efforts. Indeed, when penalties are sufficiently high, the marginal returns on investment in greenwashing exceed those from actual green quality improvements.

Partially state-owned firms are common in both developed and developing countries and contribute around 10% of the world's GDP. This has led to a rich literature exploring various aspects of competition between such “mixed”-ownership firms. This paper contributes to the existing literature by studying the effects of mixed ownership on the intensity of competition in oligopoly markets. Our findings indicate that state ownership exerts an anti-competitive influence, with a higher state ownership share resulting in less aggressive behavior by firms in the product market. This result implies that industries with a higher proportion of state ownership yield lower total surplus. Further, when considering factors such as taxes, soft budget constraints, and weak property rights, the anti-competitive effects of state ownership are accentuated.

India, the world’s most populous country, is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Despite employing several energy sources, it still relies heavily on coal, its primary energy source. Given India’s swiftly rising energy demand, this challenges meeting emission reduction targets. In recent years, India has significantly increased investments in renewables like solar and hydrogen. While commendable, these initiatives alone cannot meet the country’s expanding energy demands. In the short term, India must rely on both domestic and imported fossil fuels, with natural gas being the most environmentally friendly option. In this context, this paper attempts to forecast energy consumption, natural gas production, and consumption in India until 2050, using both univariate and multivariate forecasting methods. For multivariate forecasting, we have assumed two alternative possibilities for GDP growth: the business-as-usual and the high-growth scenarios. Each of our forecasts indicates a notable shortfall in the projected production of natural gas compared to the expected demand, implying our results are robust. Our model predicts that nearly 30–50 percent of India’s natural gas consumption will be met by imports, mainly in the form of LNG. Based on these findings, this paper recommends that Indian government policies emphasize increasing domestic natural gas production, importing LNG, and expanding renewable energy resources.

This article deals with an important and interesting topic, namely the malnutrition of adolescent girls and women in Rwanda, which is a country with a high malnutrition rate. It highlights how malnutrition of adolescent girls affects their health and...