Working Paper: NBER ID: w24619
Authors: Nicholas Ryan
Abstract: This paper studies a field experiment among energy-intensive Indian manufacturing plants that offered energy consulting to raise energy productivity, the amount plants can produce with each unit of energy. Treatment plants, after two years and relative to the control, run longer hours, demand more skilled labor and use 9.5 percent more electricity (standard error 7.3 percent). I assume that the treatment acted only through energy productivity to estimate the plant production function. The model estimates imply that energy complements skill and capital and that energy demand therefore responds more strongly to a productivity shock when plants can adjust these inputs.
Keywords: energy productivity; energy demand; manufacturing; field experiment; India
JEL Codes: D24; O14; Q41
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| energy audits (Q48) | unskilled labor demand (F66) |
| energy productivity (E23) | energy consumption (Q41) |
| energy productivity (E23) | skilled labor demand (J24) |
| energy audits (Q48) | skilled labor demand (J24) |
| energy audits (Q48) | energy productivity (E23) |